*         *  * 


HISTORICAL     VIGNETTES 


BY 

BERNARD    CAPES 

AUTHOR   OF   "A   JAY    OF    ITAIT "    *TC 


NEW    YORK 
FREDERICK   A.   STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
1910 


(All  rights  reserved.) 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

GEORGE   I.  .  .  .  .  .  .7 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE          .  .  .  .  .21 

THE  QUEEN'S  NURSE  .  .  .  .  -35 

LOUIS  xiv.          .  .  .  47 

NAPOLEON     .  .  .  .  .  .  -57 

LEONORA  OF  TOLEDO      .....          69 

CHARLES  IX.  .  .  .  .  .  -85 

THE  KING'S  CHAMPION    .....         97 

QUEEN  ELIZABETH    ......  IO7 

JANE  SHORE        ......        117 

THE  CHAPLAIN  OF  THE  TOWER        .  .  .  .129 

LADY  GODIVA      ......        14! 

THE  HERO  OF  WATERLOO     .  .  .  .  .151 

MAID  MARIAN     ......        163 

THOMAS  PAINE         ......  173 

FAIR  ROSAMOND  .  .  .  .  .  .185 


2081397 


6  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  GALILEAN  ......  197 

THE  BORGIA  DEATH         .....         2O7 

"DEAD  MAN'S  PLACK  "         .....  217 

THE  EXECUTIONER  OF  NANTES  ....        227 

THE  LORD  TREASURER          .....  237 

MARGARET  OF  ANJOU      .....        249 

"KING  COLLEY"        ......  261 

THE  SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE          .  .  .       273 

THE  PRIOR  OF  ST.  COME      .....  285 

CAPTAIN  MACARTNEY      .....        297 

THE  DUC  DE  GUISE  ......  309 


HISTORICAL  VIGNETTES 

GEORGE    I 

"  HALT  !  "  The  voice  of  an  officer  rang  out  in 
the  heavy  twilight,  and  with  a  sudden  scream  of 
brakes  and  jangle  of  harness  the  cavalcade 
came  to  a  stand. 

'*  Tell  the  Herr  von  Gastein  his  Majesty 
desires  to  speak  with  him."  The  name  ran  up 
the  long  line,  quick  and  sharp,  like  a  rattle  of 
musketry,  and  passed  out  of  hearing  of  him  who 
had  uttered  it.  "  Tell  the  Herr  Captain  to 
come  at  once." 

The  Herr  Captain  was  already,  on  the  word, 
spurring  back  from  the  head  of  the  cortege, 
which  was  of  royal  extent.  It  stood  upon  a  flat 
road  in  a  flat  country,  covering  more  ground  than 
and  including  almost  as  many  human  souls  as  a 
modern  mail-train.  There  was  the  King's  coach 
for  principal  item— a  veritable  little  room  slung 


8  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

on  straps  and  drawn  by  eight  horses  ;  and  there 
were  carriages — seven  or  eight,  and  each  hold- 
ing as  many  people — for  his  retinue,  and  baggage- 
wagons,  and  a  troop  of  fifty  sabres  to  escort 
the  whole.  It  took  so  much,  or  more,  to  carry 
this  little  corpulent  apoplectic  on  his  annual  visit 
to  Herrenhausen,  whither  he  had  already 
travelled  to  within  a  league  or  so  of  Osnabriick 
and  a  much-needed  night's  rest. 

The  Captain  von  Gastein,  having  dismounted 
and  thrown  his  reins  to  a  groom,  stood  at  stiff 
attention  by  the  coach  door.  He  was  a  patient, 
somewhat  exhausted-looking  man  of  fifty,  spare - 
bodied,  and  with  stone -blue  eyes  which  rather 
matched  the  dusty  Hanoverian  blue  of  his 
uniform.  His  expression  at  the  moment  was 
one  of  a  quiet  fatality,  as  if  the  summons  had 
not  been  altogether  unforeseen  by  him. 

A  preternatural  silence  seemed  to  have 
succeeded  the  tumult  of  hoofs  and  wheels.  There 
was  a  soundless  blink  of  lightning  in  the  sky, 
and  a  windmill  on  the  flat  roadside  blackened 
and  paled  alternately  in  its  flicker,  as  if  it  pal- 
pitated. It  was  late  June,  and  the  air  seemed 
to  have  come  out  of  a  limekiln.  The  dust 
rolled  up  into  it  began  to  settle  down  sluggishly. 


GEORGE    I  9 

The  door  of  the  great  travelling -coach  opened, 
and  a  little  bewigged  gentleman,  who  had  been 
peering  from  behind  the  glass,  descended.  His 
manner  was  dry,  self-important,  professional ;  he 
was  the  King's  English  physician. 

"  His  Majesty,  my  dear  Captain,"  he 
whispered,  "is  in  a  strange  mood.  You  are 
commanded  to  ascend  and  converse  with  him — 
you  may  guess  why.  The  affair  of  last  year 
— you  understand?  Old  associations  are  re- 
awakened, old  injuries  re -exposed — you  were 
intimately  acquainted  with  their  subject.  Bear 
in  mind  that  this  sad  event  has  interposed  itself 
between  his  last  departure  from  and  his  present 
revisit  to  his  paternal  dominions,  and  venture 
upon  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  reminder.  If 
you  find  him  fanciful,  excited " 

A  querulous  voice,  breaking  from  the  interior 
of  the  carriage,  interrupted  him  : 

"  Der  Herr  Jesus  !  What  is  all  this  chatter? 
Tell  the  man  to  enter." 

The  physician,  placing  a  warning  finger  on  his 
lips,  skipped  to  one  of  the  supplementary 
coaches  ;  the  Captain  von  Gastein  climbed  into 
the  royal  vehicle.  A  postillion  put  up  the  steps  ; 
the  door  was  closed,  the  word  given,  and  the 


10  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

cavalcade  lurched  on.  "  Sit,"  motioned  the 
King  ;  and  the  Herr  Captain,  with  what  steadi- 
ness he  could  command,  settled  himself  on  the 
edge  of  the  broad  seat  backing  upon  the  horses, 
and  awaited,  rigid  and  upright. 

He  was  quite  alone  with  his  Majesty,  and 
there  was  plenty  of  room  for  them  both.  The; 
interior  of  the  coach  was  like  a  cabinet,  and 
luxuriously  upholstered.  There  were  accommo- 
dations for  writing,  card-playing,  shaving,  coffee- 
making,  and  other  conveniences.  The  pace  was 
leisurely,  the  motion  restful ;  the  great  wheels 
turned  outside  the  windows  with  little  apparent 
sound.  The  King  of  England  lay  in  his  padded 
corner  opposite,  a  very,  weary,  moodish  little  old 
man.  His  cheeks  bagged,  his  eyes  goggled, 
strained,  and  anxious  ;  the  silk  travelling-cloak 
in  which  he  was  wrapped  only  partly  concealed 
his  immense  corpulence,  and  his  thick  legs 
and  stumpy  feet  dangled  short  of  the  floor.  His 
head  was  unwigged,  and  enveloped  in  IP  close 
cap  with  a  fur  border  which  came  down  over 
his  eyes. 

The  officer,  observant  of  everything,  for  all 
the  respectful  rigidity  of  his  vision,  could  not 
but  be  conscious  of  a  certain  feeling  of  repulsion 


GEORGE    I  11 

in  this  his  first  close  contact  with  the  prince 
to  whose  unwelcome  service,  in  one  most  tragic 
direction,  he  had  devoted  the  best  twenty-five 
years  of  his  life.  Twenty-five  years  it  was  since 
he  had  been  ordered,  a  young  impecunious 
captain,  to  the  lonely  castle  of  Ahlden  on  the 
Aller,  where  lived,  already  seven  years  incarcer- 
ated, the  beautiful  young  wife  of  the  then  electoral 
Prince  George — Sophia  Dorothea,  accused,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  of  misconduct  with  a  Swedish 
adventurer.  She  was  fair;  unhappy;  her 
husband  had  not  loved  her ;  the  cold  cruelty  of 
his  temperament  had  been  confessed  in  this  his 
consignment  of  her  to  a  living  grave.  Had  she 
not  lain  in  his  arms,  borne  him  children  ?  Gastein 
had  needed  no  more  to  inflame  his  chivalry. 
Thenceforth  he  had  given  himself  to  the  service  of 
this  lady,  to  ameliorate,  to  the  best  of  his  power, 
her  bitter  fate.  His  partiality,  his  sympathy, 
being,  no  doubt,  reported,  had  kept  him  poor 
and  unpromoted.  For  a  .quarter  of  a  century  he 
had  shared  his  princess's  exile,  and  had  only 
returned  to  the  world  when  death  had  ended  that, 
less  than  a  twelvemonth  ago.  After  thirty-two; 
years  !  And  this  was  the  unlovely  Rhadamanthus 
who  had  condemned  her,  this  little  wheezy,  pot- 


12  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

bellied  old  frog  of  a  man,  who  had  become 
Elector  of  Hanover  and  King  of  England  in 
the  interval  I  The  Captain  had  been  educated 
to  the  right  divine  succession  ;  but  something 
monstrous  in  the  picture  struck  him.  His  convic- 
tions and  his  emotions  hurt  one  another  in  their 
efforts  at  a  reconciliation.  It  was  somehow 
not  right  that  tragic  beauty  should  lie  at  the 
mercy  of  this  commonplace.  He  sat  as  stiff  as 
a  ramrod. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  grotesque  privileges 
of  royalty  to  command  silence.  No  one  must 
address  it  unless  addressed.  Then,  at  its  word, 
its  gesture,  the  empty  brass  pot  ceases  to  tinkle 
or  the  golden  vessel  overflows.  This  seems  an 
unnatural  impost,  like  taxing  a  man's  daylight 
or  his  drinking-water.  It  gives  an  uncanny  self- 
possession  to  the  mortal  who  levies  it.  The 
little  swollen  tub  of  a  creature,  glowering  in  his 
corner,  mutely  discussed  the  figure  opposite  for 
as  long  as  it  pleased  him,  with  no  more  concern, 
probably  less,  than  he  would  have  shown  in  re- 
garding a  black-beetle ;  and  when  he  spoke  at 
last  it  was  even  with  some  grudging  in  his  cold, 
guttural  voice. 

"You  are  of  the  escort,  then,  mein  Herr?" 


GEORGE    I  13 

The  Captain,  stiffening  yet  a  trifle,  saluted. 
"  As  your  Majesty  commanded,"  he  said. 

The  other  shrugged  fretfully. 

"I  am  glad,"  he  said,  "  to  find  something 
surviving  to  your  sense  of  duty." 

Von  Gastein  made  no  answer.  He  ought  not ; 
he  could  not,  indeed.  That  sense  of  warring 
emotions  hurt  him  like  a  violent  indigestion. 

The  King,  for  some  minutes,  condescended 
to  speak  no  more,  but  sat  looking  out  of  the 
window  upon  the  darkening  flats  and  the  white 
ribbon  of  the  road  reeling  under  him.  What  was 
in  his  mind?  He  had  always  declared,  for  some 
reason,  that  he  would  not  long  survive  his  wife  ; 
and  she  had  died  six  months  ago.  Had  he  some- 
how cheated  Fate — or  might  he  have  cheated 
it  had  he  remained  in  England?  This  was  his 
first  visit  to  his  patrimony  since  her  death.  Her 
death,  her  released  spirit — turn  the  coach  ! 

No,  his  beloved  Herrenhausen  !  The  stout 
little  Guelph  was  no  coward  for  all  his  love  of 
life  and  good-living.  A:  murrain  on  this  old 
wives'  trash  of  spectres  and  premonitions  !  He 
glanced  at  the  figure  opposite — it  sat  up  rigid 
and  grey  like  a  signpost — and,  with  a  scowl, 
looked  out  of  the  window  again. 


14          HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Thirty-two  years — a  woman  of  sixty,  and  she 
had  been  a  fresh,  blooming  young  wife  of 
twenty-eight  when  he  had  consigned  her  to  her 
living  death  1  Much  water,  as  they  said  in 
England,  had  flowed  under  London  Bridge 
during  that  interval — the  highways  of  life  had 
been  paved  and  repaved.  Thirty-two  years  !  The 
Schloss  was  a  dead,  dreary  place,  situated  in  a 
dead,  dreary  country — a  mere  lonely  manor-house 
in  the  wilds,  good  enough  for  a  month's  stay  ; 
but — thirty-two  years  !  Gott  in  Himmel  I  And 
she  had  been  vivacious,  worldly,  sparkling  with 
the  glory  of  being  and  doing  when  he  had  last 
seen  her  1 

A  vision  of  the  castle,  as  he  had  known  it 
once  or  twice  in  the  old,  far-off  days,  rose  before 
him.  He  saw  again  the  leagues  of  flat  marsh- 
land which  surrounded  it,  the  reedy,  river  crawl- 
ing by  its  walls,  the  grey  alders  shivering  in 
the  wind,  and  the  wheeling  of  lonely  plovers. 
He  saw  the  sad  towers,  the  cold,  undecorated 
rooms,  the  windows  looking  out  upon  the  life- 
less waste  of  road.  The  road  !  the  livid  unfruit- 
ful highway,  upon  which,  for  hours  at  a  time, 
it  had  been  said,  dry  burning  eyes  had  been 
set,  despairing  for  the  mercy,  the  deliverance, 


GEORGE    I  15 

which  never  came  !  For  thirty-two  years  !  God 
in  heaven  !  while  the  frost  of  age  slowly  settled 
on  the  beautiful  eyes,  the  deep  black  hair,  the 
breaking  heart  !  With  a  writhe,  as  of  physical 
suffering,  the  old  man  turned  from  his  window. 

"The  life  was  dull  at  Schloss  Ahlden?"  he 
said. 

"Dull,   sire." 

The  correct,  impassive  attitude  of  the  Captain 
maddened  while  it  half  cowed  him.  For  a 
minute  he  held  his  breath — only  to  release  it  in 
a  gudden  question,  unexpected,  astounding  : 

"  In  your  eyes,  soldier,  she  was  innocent  ?  " 

Von  Gastein  started  under  the  shock — and  re- 
covered himself. 

"  During  the  twenty-five  years,  sire,  I  had 
the  privilege  of  attending  on  her  the  Princess  of 
Ahlden  did  not  fail  weekly  to  take  the  Sacra- 
ment, and  on  each  occasion  to  avow  her 
innocence  before  the  altar." 

The  King  stared,  then  mumbled  from  loud  to 
low. 

"  They  will  avow  it,"  he  began,  and  broke  off 
.quickly.  Some  words  reported  to  him,  as  having 
been  uttered  by  her  to  one  seeking  to  bring 
about  a  reconciliation  before  his  enthronement, 


16          HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

recurred  to  his  mind  :  "If  I  am  guilty,  I  am 
not  worthy  to  be  your  Queen  ;  if  I  am  innocent, 
your  King  is  not  worthy  to  be  my  husband." 

A  casuistry,  feminine,  non-committing—hedg- 
ing, in  the  true  sporting  sense.  He  hardened. 
This  fate  had  not  after  all  seemed  so  merciless  to 
one  so  guilty. 

"  She  had  liberty,"  he  said,  as  if  appealing  to 
his  own  conscience. 

The  Captain  made  a  frigid  reverence,  acqui- 
escing in  the  enormous  lie. 

"  I  say,  she  had  liberty,"  repeated  the  King 
— "  permission  to  drive  abroad." 

"  For  six  miles,  sire,  back  and  forth,"  answered 
the  soldier,  as  if  he  accounted  himself  addressed  : 
"  for  six  miles  west,  to  the  old  stone  bridge  on 
the  Hayden  road.  So  much  and  no  more.  At 
the  bridge  the  escort  turned  her.  On  fine  days 
she  would  drive  herself — fast  and  faster,  till  the 
stones  spun  from  the  wheels.  She  would  seem 
to  madden  for  freedom,  to  outstrip  her  misery. 
Many  times  she  would  traverse  the  distance,  the 
lady-in-waiting  sitting,  the  troop  spurring  at  her 
side  ;  and  at  the  stone  bridge  it  would  be  always 
the  same.  '  No  further?  '  '  No  further,  madam.' 
'  Ah  !  but  death  will  release  me  !  '  " 


GEORGE    I  17 

He  stopped,  conscious  of  his  own  emotion. 
He  had  served  the  lovely  sorrow  so  long,  that 
its  tragedy  had  become  part  of  himself. 

"  I  crave  your  Majesty's  forgiveness,"  he 
muttered  in  a  broken  voice. 

The  King  spoke  up  harshly : 

"  She  was  limited  to  that  road  by  necessity." 

"  During  life,  sire." 

The  response  came  swift  and  involuntary. 
The  soldier  gasped,  having  made  it. 

'  You  will  stop  the  coach,  and  return  to  your 
duty,"  said  the  King,  blue  in  the  face. 

The  former  commotion  was  repeated ;  the 
physician  returned  to  his  patient ;  the  cavalcade 
rolled  on.  His  Majesty  spoke  not  a  single  word 
further,  but  sat  staring  from  the  window.  It  was 
deep  dusk  now  without,  and  the  lightning 
flickered  with  a  ghastlier  brilliancy.  But  still 
the  King  would  give  no  order  to  have  the  lamps 
lighted.  Instead,  he  lay  with  his  livid  face  and 
protruding  eyes  addressed  to  the  heavens,  and 
the  horror  of  a  thought  incessant  in  his  mind. 
The  road  was  open  to  her  at  last,  and  she  was 
driving  to  cut  him  off  from  Osnabrtick,  the  city  in 
which  he  had  been  born.  She  knew  that  a  man 
could  not  die  in  the  room  where  he  was  born  ; 

2 


18  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

and  she  was  coming  to  forestall  him  with  the 
dread  summons  to  appear  before  his  Maker,  and 
answer  for  the  thing  he  had  done. 

•  •  *  *  « 

Much  agitated,  von  Gastein  remounted  his 
horse,  and  spurred  on  to  his  place  in  the  front. 
He  did  more  ;  he  drove  ahead  of  all,  and  took 
the  lead  on  the  solitary  road  making  for  Osna- 
briick.  The  lights  of  the  city  were  already 
faintly  starring  the  distance,  when  a  sound 
coming  from  in  front  startled  and  then  thrilled 
him.  Swift  wheels,  and  the  hoofs  of  a  tearing 
horse  !  There  was  nothing  uncommon  in  that ; 
and  yet  his  heart  went  cold  to  hear  it.  "  God 
have  mercy  on  me  1  "  he  muttered  :  '  I  am  a 
fool !  " 

Nearer  and  nearer  came  the  sound — it  was 
close — it  was  upon  him — and  there  rushed  past 
the  shadow  of  a  cabriolet,  with  a  wild  woman  on 
the  seat  flogging  a  wild  black  horse.  The  night 
of  her  hair  streamed  behind  like  a  thin  cloud 
dusted  with  diamonds,  and  there  was  a  frenzy 
of  triumph  in  her  eyes,  and  on  her  lips  a  smile. 
And  so  she  passed  and  was  gone. 

The  Captain  turned  his  horse's  head,  and 
drove  back  upon  the  van. 


GEORGE    I  19 

11  Stop  her  !  "  he  yelled.  "  In  God's  name 
stop  her  Highness  before  too  late  !  " 

They  were  jogging  on  leisurely,  and  thought 
him  drunk  or  demented. 

'What  Highness,  Captain?"  they  said. 
'  There  has  been  none  passed  this  way." 

And  on  the  word  there  came  a  loud  cry  from 
the  rear,  and  for  the  third  time  the  cavalcade 
halted.  But  von  Gastein  had  sped  by  like  the 
wind,  and  reached  to  where  the  royal  carriage 
was  stopped  amid  a  little  cloud  of  equerries  ; 
and  a  dismayed,  small  figure  stood  upon  the 
step  by  the  open  door. 

"  His  Majesty,"  said  the  physician,  gasping 
over  his  words,  "  has  had  a  stroke,  and  is  dead  !  " 


FOUQUIER-TINVILLE 

"IF  your  life  has  ever  known  one  act  of 
self-sacrifice,  bear,  for  your  consolation,,  its 
memory  to  the  scaffold." 

With  a  stiff  smile  on  his  lips,  and  those  words 
of  the  President  of  the  reconstituted  Court  in 
his  ears,  Antoine  Quentin  Fouquier  de  Tinville, 
late  Public  Prosecutor  to  the  Revolutionary 
Tribunal,  turned  to  follow  his  guard. 

This  was  at  seven  o'clock  of  a  May  evening, 
and  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  remained  to  him 
in  which  to  collect  his  thoughts  and  settle  his 
affairs.  At  ten  on  the  following  morning  the 
tumbrils  would  arrive  at  the  archway  to  the  Cour 
du  Mai,  and  he  and  his  fifteen  condemned  jury- 
men would  start  on  their  long  road  of  agony 
to  the  Place  de  la  Revolution,  whither,  or  else- 
where, on  a  like  errand,  he  himself  had  already 
despatched  so  many  thousands . 


21 


22  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Those     words     of     the     President     somehow 
haunted  him. 

So  many  thousands — dismissed  to  their  deaths, 
without  remorse  or  pity,  from  that  same  salle 
de  la  libert^  in  which  he  had  just  stood  his  own 
trial  !  How  familiar  it  had  all  seemed,  how 
matter-of-course,  how  inevitable  ! — the  relentless 
hands  of  the  clock,  creeping  on  to  the  pre- 
meditated doom -stroke ;  the  hungry,  bestial 
faces  lolling  at  the  barriers  ;  the  voices  of  the 
street  entering  by  the  open  windows,  and  seeming 
to  comment  derisively  on  the  drawling  evidence, 
selected  to  convict.  He  had  known  the  pro- 
cedure so  well,  had  been  so  instrumental  in 
creating  it,  that  any  defence  had  well  seemed 
a  mockery  of  the  methods  of  the  Palais  de 
Justice. 

"  I  have  been  a  busy  man,"  he  had  said.  '  I 
forget  things.  Are  we  to  be  held  accountable 
for  every  parasite  we  destroy  in  crushing  but 
the  life  of  a  monster  ?  " 

That  had  appeared  a  reasonable  plea.  What 
did  not  seem  reasonable  was  the  base  sums  he 
had  personally  amassed  out  of  the  destruction 
of  the  parasites,  the  bribes  he  had  accepted,  his 
subornation  of  witnesses,  his  deafness  to  the  just 


FOUQUIER-TINVILLE  23 

pleas  of  unprofitable  virtue,  his  neglect  of  the 
principles  of  brotherhood.  'He  had  held  one 
of  the  first  offices  of  the  fraternal  State,  and 
had  made  of  it  a  wholly  self-seeking  vehicle. 
He  had  seen  his  chance  in  the  mad  battle  of 
a  people  for  liberty,  and  had  used  it  to  rob  the 
dead.  There  was,  in  truth,  no  more  despicable 
joint  in  that  "  tail  of  Robespierre  "  which  Sanson 
was  busily  engaged  just  now  in  docking  than 
this  same  Antoine  Quentin.  And  yet  he  believed 
himself  aggrieved. 

That  night  he  wrote  to  his  second  wife,  from 
his  cell  in  the  Conciergerie,  to  which  he  had 
been  returned,  the  following  words  : 

"  I  shall  die,  heart  and  hands  pure,  for  having 
served  my  country  with  too  much  zeal  and 
activity,  and  for  having  conformed  to  the  wishes 
of  the  Government." 

It  bettered  Wolsey's  cry  in  the  singleness  of 
its  reproach. 

The  problem  of  all  villainy  is  that  it  regards 
itself  with  an  obliquity  of  vision  for  which 
it  seems  hard  to  hold  it  accountable.  Given 
a  lack  of  the  moral  sense,  and  how  is 
a  man  to  make  an  honest  living?  Tinville — 
or  de  Tinville,  mark  you— became  an  attorney 


24  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

because  he  was  poor,  and  then  a  rascal  because 
he  was  an  attorney.  There  are  always  many 
thousands  living  in  an  odour  of  respectability 
whom  fortune  alone  saves  from  a  like  revela- 
tion of  themselves.  But  that  is  not  to  say  that, 
in  the  general  purification  of  society,  the  lethal 
chamber  is  not  the  best  answer  to  the  problem. 
This  man  was  by  nature  a  callous,  coarse- 
grained ruffian,  constitutionally  insensible  to  the 
pleas  of  humanity,  and  with  the  self-protective 
instinct  prominently  developed  in  him  as  in 
brutes.  You  could  not  regard  his  sallow,  grim- 
jawed  face -structure,  his  staring,  over-bushed 
black  eyes,  his  thin-lipped  mouth,  perpetually 
mobile  in  sneers  and  spitting  scorns  and 
cynicisms,  and  affect  to  read  in  them  any  under- 
suggestion  of  charity  or  benevolence.  Numbers, 
poor  obsequious  wretches,  had  essayed  the 
monstrous  pretence,  and  had  pitiably  retracted 
their  heresy  under  the  axe.  He  was  forty-seven 
years  of  age  ;  he  had  lived  every  day  of  his 
later  manhood  in  secret  scorn  and  abuse  of  the 
principles  he  had  hired  himself  to  advocate  ;  and 
only  where  his  personal  interests  were  not 
affected  had  it  ever  been  possible  to  credit  him 
with  a  deed  of  grace,  or,  at  the  best,  of  passive 
indifference . 


FOUQUIER-T1NVILLE  25 

"  //  your  life  has  ever  known  one  act  of  self- 
sacrifice!  " 

'He  had  done  kind  things  in  his  time,  two  or 
three  ;  but  had  they  ever  included  "  one  act  of 
self-sacrifice  "  ?  Had  he  not  conceded  them, 
rather,  for  the  very  contrary  reason?  He  tried 
to  think  it  out.  The  question  worried  him  oddly 
and  persistently ;  it  seemed  to  have  absorbed 
every  other ;  he  groped  perpetually  for  an 
answer  to  it  through  the  whirling  chaos  of  his 
mind.  There  had  been  the  wife  and  daughters 
of  the  Marquis  de  Miranion,  whom  he  had 
shielded  in  their  peril  because  once,  when  he 
had  been  a  young  man  contemplating  Orders, 
they  had  shown  him  kindness.  He  suddenly 
remembered  the  case,  and  remembered  too  that 
his  condescension  had  occurred  at  a  time  when 
the  despotic  nature  of  his  office  had  held  him 
virtually  immune  from  criticism  or  misrepre- 
sentation. Again,  there  had  been  the  young 
virgins  of  Verdun,  condemned  and  executed  for 
offering  sweetmeats  to  the  King  of  Prussia.  He 
had  pitied  them ;  but  pity  was  inexpensive,  and, 
at  the  moment,  not  unpopular.  There  had  been 
—what  else  had  there  been?  He  flogged  his 
brains  for  a  third  instance,  and,  not  being 


26  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

successful,  had  to  fall  back  upon  the  minor 
amenities.  Little  convivial  generosities  (for  he 
had  been  a  camarade,  a  joyeux-vivant,  in  his 
rough  way),  little  family  indulgences,  and 
sensual  concessions — he  had  these  to  set  against 
the  habitual  inhuman  greed  which  had  made  him 
the  most  squalid,  soulless  Harpagon  of  his  tribe. 
Insolent  to  weakness,  truckling  to  power,  his 
interest  in  the  awful  part  he  had  played  had 
never  risen  above  self-interest.  The  very  list 
of  the  great  names  he  had  extinguished  repre- 
sented nothing  to  his  ignoble  mind  but  so  many 
opportunities  seized  by  him  to  acquire  personal 
gain  or  personal  safety.  Vergniaud  the  ineffable, 
Corday  the  magnificent,  Lavoisier  the  gentle, 
Hubert  the  dastard,  Danton  the  tremendous— 
these,  to  take  but  a  handful,  he  had  despatched 
to  their  graves  with  a  like  indifference  to  the 
principles  which  had  brought  them  subject  to 
his  chastisement.  There  were  no  principles  in 
his  creed  but  self -gain  and  self-preservation. 
From  the  poor  Austrian  "  plucked  hen  "  at  one 
limit  of  the  tale  to  Robespierre  at  the  other, 
he  had  been  always  as  ready  to  cut  short  a 
saint  as  a  rogue  in  the  vindication  of  that  creed. 
He  simply  could  not  understand  any  other  ;  and 


FOUQUIER-TINV1LLE  27 

yet  the  words  of  the  President  were  worrying 
him  horribly. 

'He  had  answered  them,  at  the  time,  after  his 
nature — that  is  to  say,  with  servility  while  a 
thread  of  hope  remained,  and  afterwards  with 
loud  scorn  and  venomous  defiance.  Brazen  by 
constitution,  he  was  not  to  reveal  himself  soft 
metal  at  the  last.  Trapped  and  at  bay,  he 
snarled  like  a  tiger,  confessing  his  yellow  fangs 
at  their  longest.  Hope  might  exist  for  other 
men ;  but  he  knew  too  well  it  was  ended .  He 
himself  had  stabbed  it  to  death  with  a  thousand 
wounds . 

And  yet  he  was  racked  with  a  sense  of 
grievance . 

And  yet  those  words  of  the  President 
tormented  him. 

He  spoke,  and  wrote,  and  raged — through- 
out the  brief  interval  of  life  which  remained  to 
him  he  was  seldom  still.  But  always  the  one 
sentence  floated  in  letters  of  dim  fire  in  the  back- 
ground of  his  mind.  He  had  a  mad  feeling 
that  if  only  once  he  could  recall  the  necessary 
instance,  he  would  be  equipped  with  the  means 
to  defy  his  enemies — to  defy  heaven  and  hell 
and  earth.  That  was  a  strange  obsession  for 


28  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

a  sceptic  and  atheist,  but  it  clung  to  him.  The 
words,  and  the  rebuke  that  they  implied,  were 
for  ever  in  his  brain,  crossing  its  dark  wastes 
like  a  shaft  of  light  peopled  with  tiny  travelling 
motes,  which  bore  some  relation,  only  in  an 
insignificant  form,  to  the  tremendous  business 
of  the  day,  and  yet  seemed  to  have  survived 
that  business  as  its  only  realities.  Thus  through 
the  texture  of  the  ray  came  and  went  little  absurd 
memories  of  a  cut  that  juryman  Vilate,  a  fellow - 
prisoner,  had  made  upon  his  chin  in  shaving,  of 
an  early  queen-wasp  that  had  come  and  droned 
about  the  presidential  desk  during  the  droning 
indictment,  of  the  face  of  an  old  shrewd,  wintry 
hag  which  had  peered  out,  white  and  momentary, 
from  among  the  crowd  of  spectators,  and  had 
been  as  swiftly  absorbed  back  into  it. 

The  face  !  His  wandering  mind  brought  up 
on  the  recollection  of  it  with  an  instant  shock. 
The  hate,  the  tumult,  all  other  foam -white  faces 
of  the  court,  seemed  in  one  moment  to  drop  and 
seethe  away  from  it  like  a  spent  wave,  and  to 
leave  it  flung  up  alone,  stark,  motionless, 
astounding . 


FOUQUIER-TINVILLE  29 

At  ten  came  the  tumbrils,  together  with  the 
prescriptive  guard  of  sixty  gendarmes  to  escort 
them  to  the  scaffold.  The  ex-Public  Prose- 
cutor mounted  to  his  place,  dogged,  baleful, 
heroic,  according  to  his  lights.  He  could  not 
help  bullying  even  his  fellow-sufferers ;  but 
from  the  outset  there  was  a  strange,  searching 
gleam  in  his  eyes,  which  never  left  them  until 
they  were  closed  for  ever. 

From  the  Quai  de  1'Horloge  came  the  first 
roar  of  the  mob,  as  rabid  to  flesh  its  teeth  in- 
the  accuser  as  it  had  ever  been  in  the  accused. 
Already,  as  the  Pont  Neuf  was  reached,  a 
running,  howling  valetaille  of  blackguards  and 
prostitutes  was  travelling  with  the  procession. 
Lumbering  onwards,  between  ranks  of  many- 
windowed  houses  alive  with  screaming  faces  and 
waving  hands,  the  carts  traversed  the  rues  la 
Monoie  and  du  Roule,  and  turned  into  the  long 
stretch  of  the  rue  St.  Honore,  which  ended  only 
at  the  bend  into  the  great  square  of  the 
guillotine . 

They  cursed  him  all  the  way ;  he  cursed  them 
back.  The  habit  of  his  lips  spat  venom,  while 
his  brain  ignored  and  his  vision  overlooked 
them. 


30          HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  Where  are  thy  batches  now,  Antoine  ?  "  they 
screamed. 

"  Ravening  curs  !  '*  he  thundered ;  "is  thy 
bread  cheaper  lacking  them  ?  " 

All  the  time  his  eyes  were  going  with  the 
running  crowd,  searching  it,  beating  it  like 
covert,  hunting  for  something  on  which  they 
hungered  to  fasten.  And  suddenly  they  found 
it — the  figure  of  a  little  withered  old  woman,, 
bearing  a  gross  green  umbrella  in  her  hand. 

She  was  there  in  a  moment,  moving  in  pace 
with  the  carts,  a  dead  twig  borne  on  the  living 
stream,  now  afloat,  now  under,  but  always  re- 
appearing— bobbing  out  grotesque  and  vital,  and 
dancing  on  her  way.  She  was  of  the  poorest 
class,  bent,  lean,  tattered,  and  her  face  was  .quite 
hidden  behind  the  wings  of  a  frowsy  cap.  No 
one  seemed  to  observe  her ;  only  the  eyes  of 
the  condemned  gloated  on  her  movements, 
followed  them,  watched  her  every  step  with  an 
intense  greed  that  never  wavered.  For  she  it 
was  who  stood  to  him,  at  last,  for  that  single 
act  of  self-sacrifice  with  the  instance  of  which 
he  was  to  refute  his  slanderers  and  defy  the 
grave. 

It  had  come  upon  him,  all  at  once,  with  the 


FOUQUIER-TINVILLE  31 

memory  of  that  face,  projected,  livid  and  instant, 
from  the  mist  of  faces  that  had  walled  him  in. 
He  had  recalled  how,  on  a  certain  wet  and  dismal 
evening  months  ago,  he  had  been  crossing  the 
Pont  St.  Michel  on  his  way  home  after  an 
exhausting  day,  when  the  gleam  of  a  gold  coin 
lying  in  the  kennel  had  arrested  his  attention. 
Avaricious  in  the  most  peddling  sense,  he  had 
been  stooping  eagerly  to  grasp  his  find,  when  the 
interposition  of  a  second  body  had  halted  him 
unexpectedly  on  his  way. 

"Bon  Dieu,  little  citizen,  let  the  old  rag- 
sorter  be  happy  for  once  !  " 

»He  had  heard  the  febrile  plea ;  had  checked 
himself  and  had  looked.  It  was  an  old,  old 
woman,  grotesque,  battered,  drenched  with  rain. 
In  her  trembling  claw,  nevertheless,  she  had 
borne  a  shapeless  green  umbrella,  an  article 
sufficiently  preposterous  in  that  context  of 
poverty  and  sans-culottism.  No  doubt  the  dis- 
location of  the  times  accounted  for  her  possession 
of  it.  It  had  burst  open  as  she  grabbed  at  the 
coin,  and  out  had  rolled  a  sodden  red  cabbage, 
fished  from  some  mixen.  It  had  borne  an  un- 
canny resemblance  to  a  severed  head,  and  had 
made  him  start  for  the  moment. 


32  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  Let  the  old  rag-sorter  be  happy  for 
once." 

And,  with  a  laugh,  he  had  let  her  clutch  the 
gold,  restore  the  cabbage  to  its  receptacle,  and 
hobble  off  breathing  benedictions  on  his  head. 
God  knew  why  he  had  let  her — God  would  know. 
And  yet  God  was  a  cipher  in  the  scheme  of 
things.  Only,  from  the  moment  when  the  Presi- 
dent had  uttered  those  words,  he  had  been 
looking — he  knew  it  now — for  the  old  rag -sorter 
to  refute  them.  She  could  testify,  if  she  would, 
that  his  life  had  not  been  entirely  devoid  of 
disinterested  self-sacrifice.  -He  had  once,  for 
another's  sake,  refused  a  ten -franc  piece. 

>How  had  she  risen,  and  whence  followed? 
There  had  been  something  unearthly  in  the 
apparition ;  there  was  something  unearthly  in 
his  present  possession  by  it.  Yet,  from  the 
moment  of  his  mental  identification  of  the  face, 
he  had  expected  to  renew  the  vision  of  it,  to 
take  it  up  somewhere  between  the  prison  and 
the  scaffold,  and  he  would  have  been  perplexed 
only  to  find  his  expectation  at  fault.  His 
witnesses  were  not  wont  to  fail  him,  and  this, 
the  most  personal  of  any,  he  could  not  afford 
to  spare.  He  dwelt  upon  the  flitting  figure  with 


FOUQUIER-TINVILLE  33 

a  passion  of  interest  which  blinded  him  to  the 
crowd,  deafened  him  to  its  maledictions.  Auto- 
matically he  roared  back  blasphemy  for  hate  ; 
subliminally  he  was  alone  in  Paris  with  his  old 
rag-sorter. 

He  could  never  see  her  face  ;  yet  he  knew 
it  was  she  as  surely  as  he  knew  himself.  She 
went  on  and  on,  keeping  pace  with  the  cart, 
threading  the  throng,  and  always,  it  seemed, 
unobserved  by  it. 

And  then,  all  in  a  moment,  the  guillotine — 
and  he  was  going  up  the  steps  to  it  ! 

He  turned  as  he  reached  the  platform.  For 
an  instant,  tumult  and  a  sense  of  mad  disaster 
hemmed  him  in.  There  was  a  foam  of  upturned 
faces,  vaster  than  anything  he  had  yet  realised  ; 
there  was  the  tall,  lean  yoke,  with  its  wedge  of 
dripping  steel  swung  up  between  ;  there  was  the 
lunette,  the  little  window,  and  the  corners,  just 
visible,  of  the  deep  basket  beyond  into  which 
he  was  to  vomit  his  life.  They  were  hauling 
away  the  trunk  of  the  last  victim,  a  ludicrous, 
flabby  welter,  into  the  red  cart  adjacent.  What 
a  way  to  treat  a  man — soulless,  obscene  !  For 
one  instant  a  deadly  sickness  overpowered  him  ; 
he  turned  his  head  away— and  saw  her  panting 

3 


34  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

up    the    steps,    confessed,    but    yet    unnoticed, 
a  jocund  leer  on  her  withered  old  face. 

Then  suddenly  something  happened.  The 
thundering  voice  of  the  crowd  rose  to  an 
exultant  pitch ;  there  was  a  crash,  a  numbing 
jerk — and  he  was  erect  again,  amazed  and  flung 
at  liberty. 

But  even  in  that  supreme  moment  his  vision 
sought  out  his  old  rag-sorter,  and  was  for  her 
alone.  She  was  down  on  her  knees,  eager  and 
mumbling,  stuffing  something  into  her  green 
umbrella.  What  was  it — a  red  cabbage — a 
head?  He  caught  a  glimpse  of  it  as  it  went 
in — and  it  was  his  own  head — the  head  of 
Antoine  Quentin  Fouquier  de  Tinville,  ex-Public 
Prosecutor  to  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 


THE    QUEEN'S    NURSE 

FRIVOLOUS  she  may  have  been,  shallow  and 
light-hearted  as  a  brook,  but  not  heartless.  Her 
nurse — she  who,  in  modern  parlance,  had  "  taken 
her  from  the  month  "  and  had  fed  and  bred 
her  in  the  house  of  her  father,  Sir  John  Seymour, 
of  Wiltshire,  knight — would  always  defend  her 
tooth  and  nail  from  that  charge.  And  when  at 
last,  having  followed  her  nursling's  dancing 
career  through  the  Courts  of  the  old  gloomy 
Louvre  and  the  more  splendid  Whitehall,  she 
came  to  see  her  supplant  in  the  royal  caprice 
the  unhappy  Queen  whose  maid-of-honour  she 
had  been,  she  would  allow  in  her  presence  no 
breath  of  detraction  to  slur  the  good  fame  of 
her  darling,  but  would  constantly  aver  that  she 
had  fought  against  the  inevitable  with  all  the 
desperation  of  which  her  buoyant  nature  was 
capable.  Jane  could  never  say  nay  to  the  least 
plausible  beggar  in  the  world,  she  would  declare  ; 


35 


36  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

and  what  was  her  chance  when  that  suppliant 
was  King  Harry  himself?  She  loved  life,  to  be 
sure,  the  sweet  butterfly — who  would  not  with 
such  a  disposition?  And  when  the  alternative 
was  to  be  broken  on  a  wheel  I  How  many, 
though  deeper  ones,  would  have  chosen  that  in 
her  place,  she  would  like  to  know?  And  here 
was  she  about  to  justify  her  monarch's  choice  by 
presenting  him  with  a  male  heir — the  heir  for 
whom  he  had  been  growling  and  raging  these 
twenty  years  past.  She  had  no  doubt  it  would 
be  a  male,  since  her  bird  always  gave  every  one 
what  he  asked.  And  she  had  come  to  nurse  her 
nursling  through  her  first  troublous  days  in  this 
the  new  great  palace  of  Hampton  that  the  red 
Cardinal  had  built. 

So  she  believed  up  to  the  last,  and  at  that 
last  the  King,  the  least  plausible  beggar,  sat  all 
alone  one  wild  October  evening  in  the  great  oriel 
window  of  the  great  hall  at  the  Court.  It  blew 
and  rained  boisterously  without,  and  the  wet,  red 
leaves  were  dashed  against  the  glass,  where  they 
ran  down  like  gouts  of  blood.  Their  hue  was 
reflected  in  the  royal  eyes,  which  stared  out 
upon  the  desolate  prospect  between  wrath  and 
anxiety.  Henry's  conscience  was  gnawing  at 


THE    QUEEN'S    NURSE  37 

his  heart ,  in  truth,  and  despot -like  he  resented 
the  pain. 

The  tapers  burned  under  that  vaulted  gloom 
like  glow-worms  in  a  dark  avenue  ;  the  residue 
of  a  discarded  feast  lay  tumbled  about  the  tables . 
Apart  from  the  golden  dishes,  the  piles  of  fruit, 
the  crusted  goblets  and  great  flagons  of  wine, 
he  sat  in  his  tremendous  isolation,  and  fought 
the  fight  between  desire  and  humanity.  It  was 
never,  alas  !  but  a  brief  struggle  with  him.  He 
rose  in  a  moment,  a  heavy,  butcher-like  figure 
of  a  man,  a  huge  common  hulk  made  formidable 
by  padded  doublet  and  "  blistered  "  sleeves 
all  roped  and  starred  with  gems,  and,  his  lips 
puffing,  the  scant  ginger  hair  bristling  on  his 
swollen  neck  and  jowls,  thundered  an  order  into 
space.  Instant  to  it  an  obsequious  page  leaped 
into  the  Presence. 

"  Sir  Anthony  Denny — summon  him." 
The  page  vanished ;  the  King  strode  up  and 
down.  At  the  fourth  turn  he  paused  to  see 
a  figure  bow  before  him.  This  figure,  for  con- 
trast, was  robed  all  in  black,  with  a  tight  coif 
on  its  head,  and,  hanging  from  its  shoulders,  a 
long,  sleeveless  gown  edged  with  brown  fur. 
It  was  the  figure,  livid  and  drawn-faced,  of  the 


38  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

chief  barber -surgeon  attending  on  her  Majesty 
the  Queen's  confinement. 

"  Sir  Anthony,"  said  the  King,  "  make  note 
of  our  decision.  Meseemeth  in  this  realm  of 
ours  that  wives  be  plenty,  but  heirs  most  sorely 
lack.  Poor  Jane  must  suffer  for  the  succession. 
If  one  must  perish He  paused. 

;'  It  is  even  so,  your  Majesty,"  murmured  the 
physician . 

The  King  stamped  his  foot,  and  turned 
away. 

"  I  must  have  my  heir,"  he  said.  "  God's 
blood,  I  must  and  will  !  " 

But  that  night,  as  he  was  crossing  a  corridor 
to  his  cabinet,  an  old  woman  broke  upon  him 
with  tears  and  lamentations. 

"  They  are  killing  my  bird  !  " 

"  Peace,  fool  !  "  said  the  King,  harsh  and 
lowering.  "  I  must  have  mine  heir,  though  all 
birds  fell  dumb  from  this  moment." 

She  clung  to  him,  but  he  shook  her  off 
roughly,  and  went  on  his  way.  She  followed, 
importunate  and  beyond  fear. 

"  Spare  my  nursling  I  She  is  one  and  only ; 
thou  canst  not  renew  her ;  but  many  shall  be 
her  gifts  of  love  to  thee." 


THE    QUEEN'S    NURSE  39 

He  turned  like  a  goaded  bull,  and  the  woman 
was  dragged  away. 

That  night  the  little  Prince  was  born  ;  and 
thereafter  the  wreck  from  which  he  had  been 
delivered  settled  down,  and  on  the  twelfth  day 
it  sank  into  the  fathomless  deeps. 

The  King  was  sorry  for  a  while  ;  but  he  had 
his  heir  to  reward  him  for  the  sacrifice  he  had 
made.  Mary  Tudor,  a  girl  of  twenty,  and 
already  as  sour  as  crabs,  was  the  little  dead 
queen's  chief  mourner.  The  trumpets  brayed 
her  obsequies,  the  laureate  sang  them  in  exe- 
crable verse,  the  baby  —  a  pinched  atom  — 
screamed  them.  Only  the  old  nurse  sat  dumb 
and  dry-eyed,  taking  no  notice  of  anything. 

She  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Prince, 
craved  or  claimed  no  part  in  his  rearing.  But 
presently  she  took  her  spinning-wheel  to  the 
little  dark  room  by  the  chapel  which  had  been 
allotted  her  ;  and  there  she  would  sit  all  day 
drawing  flax  from  the  distaff. 

One  noon,  the  door  being  open,  the  King 
in  passing  saw  her  thus  occupied,  and  went  in. 
She  neither  moved  nor  acknowledged  his  pre- 
sence, but  went  on  with  her  spinning.  His  eyes 
began  to  redden  in  the  way  all  knew. 


40  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'What   spinnest   thou?"   he  demanded. 

"  Flax,"  she  answered,  grim  and  quiet,  without 
stopping  in  her  work. 

"For  what?"  he  roared. 

'  Thy  shroud,"  she  said,  "  and  that  of  all 
thy  house." 

Those  with  him  thought  the  roof  would  have 
fallen.  He  raised  his  own  blazing  eyes  to  it,  as 
if  in  momentary  doubt  of  his  omnipotence.  But 
when  he  spoke  at  last  it  was  noted  with  amaze- 
ment that  his  words  were  temperate. 

'  That  shall  we  see,  old  dotard,"  he  said. 
"  Dispart  her  wheel  and  her." 

She  stood  up,  with  a  smile  on  her  thin  lips, 
as  they  snatched  her  wheel  away. 

"  Dispose  them,"  said  the  King,  "  where 
neither  may  avail  the  other.  And,  for  her,  take 
her  incontinent  in  her  sorcery,  and  put  her  where 
she  may  weave  a  shroud  of  darkness  for  ever- 
more." 

He  spoke,  and  passed  out ;  and,  as  he  had 
ordered,  so  was  it  done.  The  spinning-wheel 
was  cast  into  a  cupboard  under  the  great  stair- 
case, and  the  nurse  disappeared  from  human  ken. 
Nothing  more  was  heard  of  her  for  ten  long 
years . 


THE    QUEEN'S    NURSE  41 

At  the  end  of  that  time  the  King's  majesty 
lay  ill.  His  huge  bombard  of  a  body  was  swollen 
with  gout  and  dropsy ;  a  mere  rust  of  hair  re- 
mained to  his  gross  head ;  his  hearing  was 
capricious,  and  his  eyes  rheumy  with  half- 
blindness  .  He  had  grown  slovenly  in  his  dress  ; 
his  every  breath  bullied  the  sweet  air  for  ease 
and  comfort ;  and,  to  cap  all,  his  temper  had 
grown  with  his  deformities  till  hardly  a  man 
durst  meet  his  eye. 

Lying  at  Whitehall,  he  had  a  dream  one  night 
which  troubled  him.  He  sent  for  Sir  Anthony 
Denny,  always  now  in  close  attendance,  and, 
heaving  himself  on  his  elbow,  glared  at  the 
physician  through  a  mist  of  anguish. 

"  Give  me,"  he  said,  "  to  mend  this  whirring 
in  my  brain." 

Sir  Anthony,  quaking  in  his  list  slippers,  pre- 
scribed and  administered  a  febrifuge.  It  availed 
little.  Day  and  night  the  buzzing  noise  went 
on  until  it  grew  to  madness.  One  morning  the 
King  groaned  in  torture  :  "It  droneth,  droneth 
for  ever  like  a  wheel  !  "  and  of  a  sudden  sat 
up  as  if  stricken. 

"  The  old  beldame's  !  "  he  whispered.  "  What 
of  it?" 


42  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

It  was  some  time  before  the  alarmed  leech 
could  gather  the  import  of  his  question,  and 
then  he  hurried  to  have  inquiries  made.  A 
special  courier  was  despatched  boot  and  spur 
to  Hampton  Court.  But  in  these  full  years  the 
very  memory  of  the  incident  had  vanished,  and 
none  knew  where  the  wheel  had  been  deposited. 
Only  it  seemed  that  others  there  had  been 
haunted  of  late  by  a  mysterious  sound,  so  that 
none  dared  venture  by  the  great  staircase  whence 
it  appeared  to  proceed.  And  that  was  the 
message  returned,  in  fear  and  trembling,  to  the 
tyrant. 

He  raged  :  "  I  will  have  no  mysteries  in  my 
house.  Pluck  the  stairway  down." 

A  despot's  will  is  law.  In  preparing  to  obey 
it  the  masons  came  upon  the  wheel.  The  King, 
being  informed  of  the  discovery,  roared  like  a 
wounded  tiger. 

"  Burn  the  thing  to  ashes  !  "  he  thundered, 
and,  on  the  very  word,  turned  white  and 
mumbled.  "  Nay,"  he  said,  in  a  fallen  voice, 
"  put  it  where  the  arts  of  Satan  may  not  prevail 
with  it ;  hide  it  away  in  my  royal  chapel,  and  the 
fiend  shall  be  baffled.  And  look  you  that 
none  comes  near  me  in  the  night  again  to  choke 
me  in  my  shroud." 


THE    QUEEN'S    NURSE  43 

His  mind  was  impaired ;  it  was  evident  that 
he  was  approaching  his  end ;  yet  through  all 
his  desperation  and  mental  anguish  the  inflexible 
will,  which  had  surmounted  all  other  wills  of 
half  the  world,  remained  true,  as  history  knows, 
to  its  dogged  traditions.  Almost  his  last  breath 
was  given  to  confirm  the  death  sentence  passed 
on  a  great  subject.  If  one  bitterer  pang  than 
another  rent  his  released  spirit,  it  must  have 
been  that  which  showed  him  his  final  vengeance 
unaccomplished . 

And,  in  the  meanwhile,  none  dared  approach 
him  with  the  truth  of  his  nearing  dissolution. 
He  had  killed  men  in  the  past  for  prophesying 
his  mortality.  He  had  held  death  so  cheaply, 
had  carried  it  so  lightly  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  that  he  could  not  believe  it  capable  of 
striking  at  his  omnipotence. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  the  truth  could 
be  no  longer  withheld  from  him,  and  Sir  Anthony 
Denny  was  the  one  deputed  to  break  it.  He 
approached  his  task  with  a  very  natural  appre- 
hension, the  more  so  as  his  Majesty  had  that 
morning  shown  some  increased  signs  of  con- 
fidence in  his  own  recovery.  He  greeted  the 
physician's  return  with  a  distorted  smile. 


44  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  I  shall  live  to  plague  mine  enemies  yet," 
he  said,  "so  I  can  pluck  this  cursed  hornet 
from  my  brain.  Look  you,  man,  I  see  a  cause. 
It  is  my  mind  accusing  me  of  an  over-harshness 
in  the  past.  Poor  Jane  her  nurse,  that  old  de- 
mented fool  1  Well,  she  loved  her  ;  the  debt  is 
paid  ;  let  her  go  free,  I  say." 

The  physician  stood  aghast.  He  had  been 
half  expecting  this  thunderbolt  ever  since  the 
King's  sick  fancy  had  raised  the  dust  of  a  long- 
forgotten  sentence. 

"  Your  Majesty,"  he  whispered,  "  your 
Majesty  !  The  beldame  died  in  prison  this  very 
day  se'nnight." 

"  This  day  !  "  The  King  struggled  into  a 
sitting  posture.  His  face  was  like  nothing 
human.  "  This  day  se'nnight  1  "  He  battled  for 
breath.  "  It  was  when  the  sound  began.  God's 
mercy  1  the  wheel !  " 

"  Alas,  your  Majesty  !  "  half  whimpered  the 
leech  ;  "  there  be  those  who  say  they  cannot 
hear  themselves  pray  for  its  whirring.  The 
chapel  is  deserted." 

The  King  fell  back,  and  raised  his  hands 
feebly,  as  if  drawing  something  over  his  face. 
For  an  instant  it  appeared  to  the  agitated 


THE    QUEEN'S    NURSE  45 

physician  as  if  a  shroud  of  white  had  actually 
hidden  it ;  but,  on  nearer  approach,  he  saw  that 
it  was  the  frost  of  death  that  had  fallen. 

Long  years  after,  a  tradition  which  had  for 
ages  associated  a  muffled.,  incomprehensible  dron- 
ing with  the  occurrence  of  any  death  in  the 
palace  received,  "  in  the  white  winter  of  its  age," 
a  curious  justification.  Some  workmen,  in 
breaking  through  a  wall  of  the  old  chapel,  came 
upon  an  ancient  spinning-wheel  hidden  away 
behind  the  panelling. 


LOUIS    XIV 

LOOKING  over  the  inner  Cour  de  Marbre  at 
Versailles  Palace  were  two  little  rooms,  in  the 
main  pile  of  the  building,  which  constituted  the 
very  core  of  privacy  in  the  Petits  Appartements 
du  Roi.  One  was  his  Majesty's  "  den,"  the  other 
his  wig-room,  and  both  were  elegantly  simple, 
almost  severe,  in  their  appointments.  In  the 
Galerie  des  Glaces  adjoining,  marble,  paint, 
crystal,  and  silver,  in  lavish  profusion,  repre- 
sented to  the  public  eye  the  habitual  equipage 
of  a  Grand  Monarch ;  these  more  restful  sur- 
roundings represented  to  the  monarch  himself 
his  secret  possession  of  some  emotions  felt  in 
common  with  the  vulgar  herd,  to  wit,  the  joys 
of  a  retreat  where  he  could  do  just  as  he  liked, 
without  the  necessity  of  posing  to  himself  or 
others.  A  few  chairs,  a  table,  a  secretaire — all 
profusely  painted  and  be-ormolued,  it  was  true, 
but  for  the  simple  reason  that  beauty  unadorned 


48  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

was  unprocurable  in  the  Paris  of  the  period — 
sober  hangings,  a  quiet  picture  or  so — such  was 
the  furniture  of  the  little  apartment  appropriated 
by  Louis  XIV.  to  his  inmost  meditations. 

We  find  him  in  this  distinguished  snuggery 
on  a  certain  afternoon  of  the  year  1704 — the 
twenty-first  of  August,  to  be  exact.  It  is  within 
three  days  of  St.  Bartholomew,  a  feast  which 
his  Most  Catholic  Majesty  makes  a  particular 
point  of  solemnising.  He  is,  in  fact,  pondering 
a  minor  detail  of  its  observances  at  this  very 
moment . 

As  he  sits,  his  eyes  fixed  on  nothingness  in 
crinkled  abstraction,  we  will  seize  the  fearful 
opportunity  to  scrutinise  him.  He  is  sixty-six 
years  of  age,  and  in  suggestion,  we  think,  more 
like  a  queen-dowager  than  a  monarch.  His 
minute  stature,  his  old-matronly  face,  worldly, 
shrewd,  not  unkindly ;  his  immense  falling  wig, 
resembling  a  cap  with  hanging  wattles ;  his 
feminine  particularities  and  prejudices,  all  com- 
bine to  convey  that  false  impression  of  his  sex. 
He  has  a  woman's  tastes  for  dainty  clothes  and 
china  and  gossip ;  I  am  convinced  that,  were 
it  possible  to  conceive  him  stooping  to  the  con- 
descension, he  would  play  the  part  of  Madame 


LOUIS    XIV  49 

more  realistically  than  the  Chevalier  d'Eon  him- 
self came  to  play  it. 

He  is  attired  (for  monarchs  do  not  dress)  in 
a  full-skirted  coat  of  apricot  velvet,  with  silver 
frogs.  The  coat  is  left  unbuttoned  from  neck 
to  waist,  revealing  an  ample  breast  of  cambric 
and  a  rich  lace  cravat.  His  white  silk  stockings 
are  rolled  back  over  their  garters,  which  are 
fastened  above  the  knee,  and  embrace  breeches 
of  the  same  velvet  material ;  and  stiff  diamond - 
buckled  shoes,  with  square  toes,  long  tongues, 
and  very  high  silver  heels,  complete  the  exquisite 
picture. 

So  he  poses,  and  posed,  as  punctilious  in  his 
homage  to  himself  as  any  courtier.  If  he  did  not 
appear,  in  bulk,  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  he 
was  as  brilliant  a  centre  as  his  own  dazzled  system 
need  desire. 

An  odd  train  of  thought  was  in  Louis's  mind 
as  he  sat  thus  gazing  into  vacancy.  The  near- 
ness of  the  Feast  of  St.  Bartholomew  was  its 
central  subject,  since  it  entailed  the  repetition 
of  a  custom  long  practised  by  him  to  significant 
effect.  Or  had  there  been  any  connection 
between  the  custom  and  the  effect?  That  was 
just  the  .question  in  his  mind.  He  was 

4 


50  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

inclining,  for  some  extraordinary  reason,  to 
doubt  for  the  first  time  their  relationship.  It 
had  come  upon  him  all  in  an  instant  at  what, 
adopting  the  fashion,  we  must  call  a  psycho- 
logic moment  in  his  career. 

He  was  not,  according  to  some  people,  a 
really  wise  man  ;  but  there  was  no  denying  that 
he  was  a  supremely  self  -sufficient .  It  had  never 
occurred  to  him,  in  all  his  life,  that  his  judgment 
could  possibly  be  surpassed  by  another.  That 
was  the  queer  thing.  He  had  tacitly,  almost 
unconsciously,  it  seemed,  permitted,  in  one 
curious  instance,  his  mental  supremacy  to  sub- 
ordinate itself  to  a  superstition.  He  appeared 
to  recognise  the  fact  all  at  once,  and  with  an 
amazement  that  was  like  one  of  those  sudden 
developments  of  reason  which  a  child  will 
exhibit  between  a  single  night's  sleeping  and 
waking.  Something  had  happened  to  him,  and 
he  saw  himself  in  a  moment — not  a  fool ;  that 
were  impossible — but,  in  a  certain  solitary  direc- 
tion, a  dupe  to  his  own  modesty.  Quality, 
kingship,  all  his  greatness  as  it  stood,  he  had 
let  be  accounted,  by  default,  less  to  the  essence 
of  divinity  in  himself  than  to  a  paltry  charm, 
in  the  accidental  possession  of  which  any  quack- 


LOUIS    XIV  51 

salver  might  boast  himself  omniscient.  He  felt 
strangely  small  all  of  a  sudden. 

Presently  he  stirred,  and  threw  out  his  chest. 
Small  !  He,  Louis  ?  Had  he  not  made  France 
what  she  was  ?  Had  he  not  in  the  blood  of 
two  great  wars,  prolonged,  triumphant,  deadly, 
cemented  the  fabric  of  state  of  which  he  stood, 
golden,  sacrosanct,  the  supreme  expression  ?  Was 
he  not  at  this  date  the  most  powerful  monarch, 
the  most  glorious,  the  most  dreaded  that  a 
dazzled  world  had  ever  worshipped?  And  since 
some  there  remained  who  questioned  his  pre- 
eminence, were  not  his  armies  at  this  moment 
opening  a  third  victorious  campaign  in  order  to 
re-convince  the  recalcitrants?  And  to  what  was 
all  this  success  to  be  attributed — to  his  own 
mastering  genius,  inspired,  stupendous,  or  to  his 
possession  of  a  trumpery  talisman,  whose  favour, 
even,  was  conditional? 

He  drew  in  his  breath,  with  a  slight  hissing 
sound,  as  if  he  had  been  stung.  Superstition? 
an  aberration,  to  which  the  mightiest  were 
subject.  He  thanked  his  majestic  stars  only 
that  the  knowledge  of  it  was  private  to 
himself. 

He  half  rose,  and  sank  into  his  chair  again, 


52  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

with  a  frown.  It  was  his  custom,  he  told  him- 
self haughtily,  to  command  Destiny,  not  truckle 
to  it.  How  had  he  come  to  concede  even  this 
single  exception  to  his  custom?  There  was  a 
blind  spot,  it  was  said,  in  every  eye  ;  perhaps 
there  was  some  like  defect  in  every  kingly  con- 
stitution. The  heel  of  Achilles  !  Or,  maybe — 
what  else? 

Age! 

The  word  seemed  to  smite  him  out  of  the 
depths.  'He  almost  jumped  where  he  sat.  This 
business,  so  childish  in  its  credulity  1  Merciful 
•Heaven  I  was  it  possible  he  could  be  verging 
on  his  second  childhood — he,  Louis,  who  had 
almost  come  to  convince  himself  that  he  was 
destined  to  the  fiery  chariot?  Of  late  the  sun 
discs,  the  emblems  of  the  Roi  soleil,  had 
increased  in  number  on  his  walls  and  ceil- 
ings. Perhaps  they,  too,  were  a  sign  of  his 
dotage . 

He  hesitated  no  longer,  but,  rising  hastily, 
sought  the  secretaire  against  the  wall,  and,  feel- 
ing in  a  very  remote  and  secret  little  recess  of 
it,  brought  out  a  tiny  packet,  somewhat  like  a 
'Hebrew  phylactery  in  suggestion.  It  was  no 
more  than  a  couple  of  inches  or  so  square,  of 


LOUIS    XIV  53 

vellum,  flattish  in  form,  and  closely  sealed  with 
an  odd,  incomprehensible  device.  A  number  of 
pin -pricks  perforated  it. 

As  he  stood,  holding  the  thing  in  his  hand, 
the  time  and  occasion  on  which  he  had  consented 
to  its  acceptance  rose  vividly  before  him.  It 
had  been  a  black  night  in  a  certain  October 
long  past,  when  a  dark  Italian  monk,  a  famed 
astrologer,  had  waited  on  him  by  appointment 
in  his  Sevres  villa.  He  recalled  how,  conse- 
quent on  his  casting  of  the  royal  horoscope,  this 
sardonic  Genethliac  had  offered  him  (for  a 
weighty  consideration),  as  a  defence  against 
certain  threatened  complications  in  his  royal 
ecliptic,  the  very  talisman  he  now  regarded,  and 
which,  saddled  with  a  condition,  was  to  procure 
him  consistent  happiness  and  prosperity  through- 
out his  reign.  And  he  recalled  how  he  had 
accepted  the  terms,  covenanting,  on  pain  of 
disaster,  to  preserve  the  charm  intact,  and, 
moreover,  to  plunge,  on  the  occasion  of  every 
notable  Church  festival,  a  pin  through  its 
sides . 

A  na'ive  undertaking,  perhaps,  yet  seeming 
justified  in  its  results.  Half  credulous,  half  con- 
temptuous, and  entirely  good-humoured,  he  had 


54  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

been  faithful  to  the  conditions,  and  had  certainly 
prospered.  The  thing  had  become  a  habit  with 
him,  and  his  conscience  had  never  felt  a  scruple 
in  its  performance.  Why  should  it?  Was  not 
the  bestower  of  the  gift  a  consecrated  priest? 
'He  could  find  a  hundred  reasons  for  tolerating 
his  superstition,  and  not  one  for  condemning  it. 
Probably,  if  the  truth  were  known,  the  packet 
contained  what  might  be  called  a  black,  or  con- 
trary relic — a  lock  of  Judas's  hair,  a  shaving  of 
Ananias's  toe-nail,  a  scale  of  Saladin's  liver,  or 
one  shed  by  the  devil  himself  when  he  struggled 
in  St.  Dunstan's  tongs.  Or  more  likely  it  con- 
tained nothing  at  all,  and  had  served  for  a  mere 
trick  to  extort  money. 

He  held  it  out  at  arm's  length,  with  a  smile 
on  his  face.  The  absurdity  of  his  compliance 
had  struck  him  all  at  once  acutely.  That  his 
destiny,  through  all  these  long  years,  could  have 
hung  at  the  mercy  of  so  ridiculous  a  trifle  I  He 
was  great  because  he  was  great,  a  conqueror 
by  force  of  inherent  genius.  Away  for  once 
and  for  ever  with  the  imposture  ! 

One  moment  he  held  the  packet  up  to  the 
light,  and  saw  a  hundred  tiny  stars  shine  through 
the  punctures  he  had  made  in  it  on  successive 


LOUIS    XIV  55 

feasts  ;  the  next  he  broke  the  seals,  unfolded 
the  vellum,  stared,  dropped  the  whole  on  the 
floor,  and  staggered  back  as  if  stricken  to  the 
heart . 

There,  at  his  feet,  it  lay  revealed  before  him 
— the  thing  that  he  had  done ;  and  hie  knew 
that  he,  the  most  Christian  King,  he  who  had 
revoked  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  he  who  had  rooted 
up  the  tares  and  made  all  France  one  crop  of 
catholicity,  he  who  stood  for  Heaven's  vicegerent, 
its  high  priest,  its  super-pope,  had  been  for  years 
stabbing  the  Blessed  Host,  the  consecrated 
wafer  ! 

As  he  thus  dwelt,  motionless,  aghast,  a  knock 
came  at  his  door.  He  collected  himself  by  a 
wrenching  effort,  and  bade  the  intruder  into  his 
presence . 

It  was  a  courier  from  the  Marechal  de 
Villeroy,  introduced  by  a  favoured  courtier. 
Both  men  were  agitated  and  death-pale.  They 
came  to  inform  his  Majesty  that  his  entire  army, 
under  Marshal  Tallard,  had  been  destroyed,  or 
had  capitulated  to  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  at 
Blenheim,  in  Bavaria. 

The  King  at  first  answered  nothing ;  but  his 
eyes  were  observed  to  wander  towards  a  scrap 


56  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

of  vellum,  apparently  insignificant,  which  lay 
upon  the  floor.  And  then  he  recovered 
himself,  with  a  courageous  smile. 

"  But  that  is  very  bad  news,  my  friend,"  he 
said. 


NAROLEON 

IT  was  the  fourth  of  July,  1809,  and  a 
thunderous,  close  evening.  In  Lobau,  the 
largest  of  the  five  islands  on  the  Danube, 
where  were  the  imperial  headquarters,  the  huge 
machinery  of  war,  human  and  insentient,  was 
getting  up  steam,  so  to  speak,  for  the  morrow's 
milling,  and  eliciting,  as  its  flywheel  slowly 
revolved,  an  automatic  response  in  all  its  myriad 
parts  from  Pressburg  to  Vienna.  The  occasion, 
it  might  be  said,  was  an  emergency  occasion. 
If  the  Emperor,  himself  commanding,  had  not 
been  thrashed  by  the  Austrians,  under  the 
Archduke  Charles,  a  couple  of  months  earlier 
at  Aspern,  his  retreat  upon  the  islands  had 
looked  so  much  like  a  defeat,  that  for  the 
moment  his  supremacy,  moral  and  material, 
hung  in  the  balance.  For  the  first  time  the 
Grand  Army  had  suffered  a  shock  to  its  amour- 
propre  and  its  hitherto  invincible  faith  in  its 


57 


58  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

leader.  A  little  might  turn  the  scale,  and  send 
all  its  disintegrated  legions  scuttling  back  to 
Strasburg. 

That  the  impenetrable  "  Antichrist  "  himself 
was  fully  aware  of  the  nature  of  the  hazard  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt,  or  that  he  was  concen- 
trating all  the  deepest  faculties  of  his  genius 
on  the  delivery  of  a  blow  which  should  be 
immense  and  final.  He  was  much  alone  in  his 
tent,  and  his  orders  were  laconic  and  momen- 
tous. The  ordinary  mind  cannot  picture  such 
a  situation,  and  dismiss  its  surrounding  distrac- 
tions— one  might  say  its  hauntings.  There  were 
the  arsenals,  the  forges,  the  rope  walks,  the  sheds 
for  boat-mending,  the  canteens  and  parks  of 
artillery  all  over  the  five  islands  ;  there  were 
the  boats  themselves  in  the  river,  scores  of  them, 
and  the  massive  chains  which  bound  them  into 
bridges  ;  there  were  the  ammunition  wagons  and 
their  loaded  boxes,  the  forests  of  piled  arms, 
the  tossed  oceans  of  tents,  the  miles  of  tethered 
horses,  the  ring-fences  of  palisades  ;  and  there 
were  the  troops  for  last,  enough  to  people  a 
great  city,  and  each  man  of  them  as  cheerily 
busy  as  if  he  were  one  of  an  exodus  of  Israelites 
picketing  on  his  way  to  the  promised  land.  Seven 


NAPOLEON  59 

weeks  before  this  same  island  of  Lobau  had 
been  littered  with  the  legs  and  arms  of  those 
wounded  at  Aspern — limbs  hastily  severed  and 
flung  helter-skelter  among  the  grass  of  its 
meadows.  Its  soil  was  soaked  with  blood ; 
thousands  of  mangled  men  and  horses  had  sunk 
screaming  in  the  waters  which  thundered  by  its 
shores  ;  a  hail  of  iron  had  smashed  into  it  and 
its  even  more  luckless  neighbours ;  fire  from 
burning  mills  had  roared  down  upon  its  bridges, 
melting  men  and  metal  into  one  horrible  anneal- 
ing;  it  had  heaved  and  vomited  with  the  filth 
of  war.  And  had  all  that  hideous  picture  a 
place  in  the  background  of  the  master-mind,  or 
had  its  present  aspect,  of  busy  preparation  for 
another  scene  as  sickening,  or  worse?  One 
sorrow  may  have  haunted  him,  one  bloody  ghost 
out  of  all  the  multitudes — the  figure  of  his  old 
comrade  Marshal  Lannes,  as  he  had  seen  him 
borne  hither  on  a  litter  of  branches  and  muskets 
on  the  fatal  day — one  shattered  horror  more  to 
feed  the  carnage.  He  had  been  moved  a 
moment,  had  wept,  and  kissed  the  dying  man. 
An  unconscious  thought  of  him  may  have  lin- 
gered still  like  a  melancholy  shadow  in  his  soul. 
But,  for  the  rest,  one  may  be  sure  that  he  looked 


60  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

over  and  beyond  all  these  things,  as  a  great  archi- 
tect sees  through  the  maze  of  scaffolding  the 
glory  of  the  fabric  his  soul  has  raised.  This  man, 
it  is  to  be  supposed,  ever  regarded  a  battlefield 
but  as  a  map,  so  clear  to  his  mind,  that,  as  the 
opposing  troops  manoeuvred  on  it,  he  could  check 
or  reinforce  them,  show  them  the  way  to  defeat 
or  victory  with  his  eyes  shut.  He  was  a  calcu- 
lating "  freak,"  and  as  such  superhuman — or 
superdiabolic. 

As  the  dark  gathered,  lit  only  by  the  flickering 
lightnings,  an  immense  hush  fell  over  the  islands. 
Every  lamp  and  fire  was  extinguished  ;  the  multi- 
tudinous tramp  of  moving  hosts  mingled  with 
the  boom  of  the  river,  and  became  part  with  it ; 
the  song  of  the  bugles,  soft  and  short,  mounted 
on  the  wind,  and  fled  with  its  shrilling  through 
the  branches  of  the  trees.  One  might  never 
have  guessed  the  universal  movement  that  was 
taking  itself  cover,  as  it  were,  under  these 
silences,  as  if  the  islands  themselves  had  been 
unmoored,  and  were  drifting  soundlessly,  with 
their  freight  of  death,  towards  the  shores. 

In  the  midst,  a  little  cry,  sharp  and  sudden, 
rang  out  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Emperor's 
tent — it  might  have  been  a  trodden  bird's  ;  it 


NAPOLEON  61 

passed,  and  was  not  repeated.  A  young  officer, 
de  Sainte  Croix,  of  the  personal  staff,  hurried 
towards  the  spot.  It  was  he,  vigorous  and 
enthusiastic,  who  had  often  gained  the  Emperor's 
approval  by  climbing  tall  trees  on  the  island  to 
watch  the  Austrian  preparations  on  the  distant 
plain.  'He  found  a  sentry  standing  by  a  clump 
of  bushes,  and  another,  one  of  the  Old  Guard, 
lying  prone  at  his  feet. 

"  Malediction  !  "  he  whispered.  "  Who  had 
the  daring?,  " 

The  man  saluted. 

"  It  is  Corporal  Lebrun,  Monsieur.  He  gave 
one  cry — thus  ;  and  I  saw  him  fall.  He  was  hit 
over  the  heart  at  Essling",  and  only  his  cartouchier 
saved  him ;  but  he  has  complained  since  of 
an  oppression.  I  think  the  closeness,  the 
thunder " 

The  officer  interrupted  him  : 

'  That  will  do.  You  had  no  right  to  leave 
your  post.  Return  to  it." 

The  soldier  saluted  again,  wheeled,  and  re- 
treated. De  Sainte  Croix  bent  over  the  fallen 
man. 

"  How  is  it,  Lebrun  ?j  " 

The  corporal  lay  with  a  ghastly  face,  his  breath 


62  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

labouring, his  chest  lifting  in  spasms.  He  was  not 
a  young  man,  yet  prematurely  aged,  toughened, 
grizzled,  tanned  like  old  leather  in  the  service 
of  his  god.  There  was  a  wild,  lost  look  in  his 
eyes  which  betokened  the  coming  end.  He 
struggled  to  speak. 

"  Lift  me  up,  monsieur,  in  God's  name  1  " 

De  Sainte  Croix  took  the  livid  head  on  his 
knee.  The  posture  somewhat  eased  the  fighting 
heart. 

"  Courage,  comrade  !  This  fit  will  pass  with 
the  oppression.  Why,  I  myself  feel  it — I.  When 
the  storm  breaks " 

The  blue  lips  caught  at  the  word. 

"  When  the  storm  breaks  1  What  will  he  have 
answered?,  " 

"  Heft    Who  ?  "  said  the  young  officer. 

The  dying  corporal,  twisting  in  his  arms, 
made  an  awful  gesture  towards  the  Emperor's 
tent. 

"  As  always,"  said  de  Sainte  Croix,  "  with  the 
cry  to  victory." 

The  other  clutched  his  hand  with  a  grip  like 
madness. 

"  I  believe  it,  monsieur.  He  will  have 
renewed  the  compact." 


NAPOLEON  63 

'  What  compact,  my  poor  friend?  " 

"With  the  red  man." 

De  Sainte  Croix  could  hardly  catch  the 
answer. 

He  laughed — men  must  laugh,  though  they 
died  for  it — and  spoke  a  soothing:  word.  He 
believed  the  poor  fellow  delirious. 

'*  I  have  laughed  too,  I  have  scorned,  I  have 
feigned  to  disbelieve,"  said  Lebrun,  thickly  and 
passionately.  "  I  laugh  no  longer.  Marengo, 
Hohenlinden,  Jena,  Austerlitz — what  mortal  brain 
unassisted  could  have  so  added  victory  to  victory, 
could  so,  and  for  so  long  a  time,  have  held  the 
world's  destinies  in  the  hollow  of  one  hand?  I 
am  a  soldier,  monsieur,  a  simple,  uneducated 
man,  and  yet  I  know  thing's  and  I  have  seen 
things  that  would  make  the  wise  falter  in  their 
wisdom." 

'  This  red  man,  amongst  others,"  said  the 
young  officer  conciliatingly. 

A  quiver  of  lightning  at  the  moment  glazed 
the  dying  face.  Great  drops  stood  on  it ;  the 
fallen  cheeks  were  filling  with  shadow ;  the  eye- 
balls shone  like  porcelain.  In  spite  of  himself, 
a  shiver  ran  down  de  Sainte  Croix's  spine. 
There  was  certainly  something  uncanny  in  the 


64  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

night,  even  to  war-toughened  nerves.     Lebrun's 
voice  had  sunk  to  a  whisper  as  he  answered  : 

"  Didst  thou  never  hear  of  the  General's 
proclamation  in  Egypt  to  the  Ulemas  and 
Shereefs?  He  stood  then  on  shifting  sand— 
the  English  sea-captain  had  just  beaten  us.  A 
false  step,  and  he  were  engulfed  for  ever.  And, 
to  gain  the  people,  he  told  them  that  their  God 
had  sent  him  to  destroy  the  enemies  of  Islam 
and  to  trample  on  the  cross." 

"  Policy,  Lebrun,"  said  de  Sainte  Croix, 
lifting  his  hand  to  wipe  his  own  wet  forehead. 
"  He  never  meant  it." 

"  Then  why,  monsieur,  did  this  blasphemy 
follow  immediately  on  the  visit  of  the  red  man? 
There  had  been  no  hint  of  it  before — and  after- 
wards he  swore  to  them  that  their  false  bible 
was  the  true  word." 

De  Sainte  Croix  snapped  somewhat  fret- 
fully : 

"This  red  man?      Who  the  devil  is  he?" 
A  shudder  quite  convulsed  the  corporal. 
"  Thou  hast  spoken  it,  monsieur." 
"  A  figment  of  your  excited  fancy,  soldier."' 
"  With  these  eyes   I   saw  him,  monsieur.      It 
was  ten  years  ago.     I  was  on  guard  in  a  corridor 


NAPOLEON  65 

of  the  palace  at  Cairo,  and  there  came  out  of 
the  Generals  cabinet  one  who  had  never  gone 
in.  Little  he  was,  like  a  child  of  a  hundred 
years,  and  he  had  on  a  blood-red  bernous,  and 
his  face  was  black  as  a  Nubian's.  Only  at 
the  lips  it  pulsed  with  fire,  and  fire,  dim  and 
wavering,  travelled  under  his  cheeks.  One 
moment  thus  he  stood — I  could  have  touched  him 
— and,  behold  1  he  was  a  little  draped  black 
figure  of  bronze  that  stood  on  a  pedestal  by  a 
red  curtain.  It  had  always  been  there — I  rubbed 
my  eyes " 

"  Voila  la  chose  I  " 

"  Monsieur,  I  dared.  I  listened  at  the 
General's  door,  and  I  heard  him  laugh  softly  to 
himself — he  who  never  laughs — and  he  said  : 
4  Greet  thee,  Zamiel  !  Ten  years  I  have  given 
thee  to  make  me  a  god,  or  our  compact  is 
ended  !  '  Monsieur,  the  ten  years  are  passed, 
and  to-night  he  stands  again,  as  he  stood  then, 
at  the  parting  of  the  ways." 

A  flash,  more  brilliant  than  any  that  had  yet 
shown,  weltered  and  was  gone.  The  dying 
soldier  lifted  his  head  quickly,  with  a  fearful 
cry : 

"  Ne  savoir  a   quel  saint  se   vouer  !      I   saw 

5 


66  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

him  again— but  now,  before  I  fell,  I  saw  the  red 
man  again,  and  he  passed  into  the  Emperor's 
tent !  " 

The  thunder  followed  on  his  word,  with  a 
rolling  slam  that  shook  the  island. 

"  Lebrun  1  "  cried  the  young  officer.  "  Le- 
brun  !  " 

The  head  was  like  a  stone  in  his  hands ;  he 
peered  down  sickly ;  the  soul  of  the  corporal 
had  been  shaken  out  of  him  with  the  crash. 

And,  even  as  de  Sainte  Croix  rose,  the  storm 
broke,  and  under  cover  of  it,  and  of  the  tear- 
ing wind  and  rain,  began  the  first  of  those 
silent  movements  which  were  to  precipitate  the 
gathered  hosts  of  the  French  upon  the  opposite 
shore — and  victory. 

A  moment  later  the  young  man  was  back  at 
his  post,  amid  a  shadowy  flurry  of  equerries  and 
staff  officers.  All  seemed  confusion,  but  it  was 
the  kaleidoscopic  agitation  which  falls  into  place 
and  order.  As  he  stood,  the  enemy's  guns, 
startled  into  action,  flashed  deep  and  melancholy 
from  the  distant  blackness,  their  roar  mingling 
with  the  thunder's. 

It  was  in  an  instant  of  quivering  light  that, 
looking  down,  he  was  aware  of  something  strange 


NAPOLEON  67 

and  red  standing  by  his  side.  It  might  have  been 
a  child,  a  dwarf,  a  cuirassier's  scarlet  cloak, 
grotesquely  alive.  In  the  momentary  blinding 
darkness  which  followed  it  was  lost  to  him.  He 
heard,  as  his  eyes  recovered  their  focus,  a 
measured  voice  speaking  close  by : 

"  I  think  we  have  them,  M.  de  Sainte  Croix, 
since  I  have  resolved  to  renew  my  compact  with 
Destiny." 

<He  started  violently,  saluted  instinctively.  It 
was  the  Emperor  himself. 

"  By  God's  favour,  sire,"  he  said. 

"  Precisely,"  said  the  Emperor  dryly,  and 
walked  away. 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO 

"  FOR  the  fruit  of  the  blood  belongs  to  those 
who  bring  the  price  of  love." 

So,  but  in  a  less  rapt  and  mystical  sense  than 
that  in  which  the  holy  virgin  of  Siena  had 
poured  out  her  soul,  thought  the  young  Duchess 
Leonora,  wife  of  Pietro,  second  son  of  Cosimo 
da  Medici,  Grand  Duke  of  Florence. 

The  price  of  love,  the  price  of  love  !  For 
eleven  days  she  had  wept,  burning  to  pay  it — 
indignant,  passionate,  heart-broken,  she  had  told 
herself.  And  now  that  the  altar  was  ready  and 
the  blade  bared,  what  was  her  desire?  Only  for 
mercy — only  for  life,  shameful  and  abandoned 
if  needs  must  be,  but  life  on  any  terms,  the 
least  regarded,  the  most  despised.  She  was  so 
young,  so  untutored ;  she  had  been  so  led  astray 
by  the  casuistries  of  gallantry  in  this  city  of 
profligates.  She  would  confess  her  sin,  plead 
its  extenuations,  abase  herself  before  the  knees 


70          HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

of  the  father  of  her  child.  That  at  least  existed 
in  pledge  of  her  wifely  loyalty ;  no  man  else 
could  boast  so  much  of  her.  She  had  borne 
that  agony,  that  rapture,  with  a  pure  conscience. 
Surely  the  father  would  not  murder  the  mother 
of  his  babe  I  So  monstrous  a  deed  would  cry 
aloud  for  vengeance  even  in  this  place  of 
monsters  ! 

And  even  while  she  sat  with  white  face  and 
staring  eyes,  gnawing  a  tumbled  strand  of  her 
beautiful  auburn  hair,  she  knew  that  all  the 
extenuations  she  could  plead  were  but  so  many 
aggravations  of  her  crime ;  that  the  reptile  she 
had  been  forced  into  marrying  had  insidiously 
encouraged  her  infidelity  with  this  very  purpose 
of  ridding  himself  of  her ;  that  all  the  light  and 
flower  of  her  youth  were  but  incentives  to  the 
lustful  cruelty  of  one  destitute  of  compassion 
and  nobility.  She  was  to  die,  somewhere,  some- 
how,; and  in  all  that  city  she  had  no  one 
courageous  friend  to  whom  to  turn,  no  hope 
anywhere  of  refuge  or  escape.  Policy,  the  policy 
of  the  devil  in  this  cursed  Gehenna,  must  turn 
a  deaf  ear,  a  blind  eye  to  her  peril.  The  Duke 
himself - 

She  shuddered  from  the  very  poison  of  his 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO  71 

name.  The  base  emotions  it  recalled  robbed 
death  for  the  moment  of  its  worst  terrors, 
picturing  its  shadowy,  arms  the  sole  merciful 
asylum  from  memories  too  dreadful  for 
endurance.  Death,  no  grisly  phantom,  but  the 
kind  mother,  lulling  to  eternal  forgetfulness  ! 

Ah  !  but  she  was  so  young,  so  young  !  She 
buried  her  face  in  her  hands,  and  rocked  herself 
to  and  fro,  moaning. 

»  *  *  *  * 

Cosimo,  the  first  of  the  junior  branch  of  the 
house  of  Medici,  had  come  to  reign  in  Florence 
as  absolute  Duke  in  1537.  His  wife,  Leonora 
(daughter  of  Don  Pedro  de  Toledo,  Spanish 
viceroy  at  Naples),  had  died  twenty-five  years 
later,  after  having  borne  him  several  children, 
of  whom  Pietro  was  the  second  son.  Within  a 
month  or  two  of  her  death  the  Duke  was  involved 
in  an  intrigue  with  a  second  Leonora  de  Toledo, 
niece  of  the  first,  a  beautiful  child  who  had  been 
placed  at  the  Tuscan  Court  under  her  aunt's 
care.  The  circumstances  of  the  liaison  being 
revealed  caused  such  a  scandal  that  Cosimo,  in 
order  to  quiet  it,  married  the  girl  to  his  son 
Pietro,  a  libertine  of  the  sickliest  odour.  The 
inevitable  result  followed  in  that  city  of  furious 


72  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

passions  and  perverted  morals .  The  young  wife, 
despised  and  neglected  by  her  husband,  robbed, 
moreover,  of  her  self-respect,  accepted  the  usual 
cavalier e-servente — in  this  case  one  Alessandro 
Gagi — more,  it  would  seem,  out  of  pique  than 
inclination.  At  least,  when,  the  flirtation  having 
been  noted,  Gagi,  privately  warned  of  its  danger, 
had  elected  to  resolve  a  poignant  difficulty  by 
retiring  into  a  monastery,  Leonora  had  had  no 
difficulty  in  transferring  her  affections  to  an 
object  more  daring,  or  less  discreet,  than  her 
melancholy  new-fledged  young  Capuchin.  The 
fresh  fancy  was  a  youthful  blood  of  Saint- 
itienne,  and  this  time  it  was  a  case  of  genuine 
passion  into  which  she  rushed  headstrong.  She 
may  have  affected  to  believe  that  indifference 
was  the  worst  thing  she  had  to  fear  from  her 
husband ;  if  she  did,  she  lied  to  herself,  as 
women  will  when  their  desire  runs  ahead  of 
their  prudence.  The  case  of  Alessandro  Gagi 
was  her  sufficient  admonition.  The  dog  was  not 
asleep  because  his  eyes  were  shut. 

The  lovers  met ;  and  this  time  there  was  no 
hint  of  espionage  vouchsafed.  But  .quite  sud- 
denly St.  litienne,  as  we  must  call  him,  was 
ordered  off  to  the  Island  of  Elba.  The  pretext 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO  73 

for  his  banishment  was  a  fatal  duel  in  which 
he  had  lately  been  engaged  with  a  young  noble- 
man, Francesco  Ginori ;  the  real  object,  un- 
doubtedly, was  the  procuring  of  incriminating 
evidence  of  the  liaison  in  the  shape  of 
written  correspondence.  St.  jfctienne,  recklessly 
enamoured,  was  not  long  in  providing  this,  or 
the  spies  of  the  husband  in  intercepting!  it. 
The  guilty  lover  was  seized,  brought  back 
privately  to  the  prison  of  the  Bargello,  and 
there  at  dead  of  night  strangled.  The 
news  of  his  death  was  conveyed  to  Leonora, 
whether  in  malice  or  sympathy,  by  Eran- 
cesco,  her  brother-in-law;  and  for  eleven 
days  thereafter  she  wept,  heedless  of  conse- 
quences, abandoned  to  her  grief.  She  dreamed 
in  that  time  that  she  had  the  stuff  of  heroism  in 
her ;  and  her  illusionment  only  came  to  vanish 
utterly  with  the  withdrawal  of  the  envoy  who, 
on  the  twelfth  day,  had  brought  her  a  message 
from  her  husband. 

This  envoy's  voice,  his  figure,  each  as  chill, 
as  precise,  as  faultless  as  the  other,  still  vividly 
haunted  her  as  she  sat.  Not  a  word  or  tone! 
of  his  had  been  ill-considered ;  not  a  hair  had 
been  out  of  place  in  his  little  pointed  black 


74  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

beard,  which  had  lain  upon  a  ruff  like  biscuit 
china.  'His  cold,  exquisite  hands,  his  jerkin  and 
trunk  hose  of  white  silver-sprigged  satin,  his 
ivory  sword-scabbard — all  had  been  so  many 
graduated  harmonies  in  a  picture  of  icy  perfec- 
tion. He  had  looked  a  man  built  out  of  frost ; 
and  from  the  heart  of  frost  had  come  his  words, 
keen,  dispassionate,  killing : 

"  His  Grace,  Madonna,  much  concerning  him- 
self with  a  distemper  into  which  he  hears  you 
reported  to  be  fallen,  entreats  your  company  at 
his  Villa  of  Cafaggiodo,  where  he  is  in  hopes  the 
silence  and  the  sweeter  air  will  restore  to  you. 
your  health." 

And  she  had  looked  at  him,  with  a  sudden 
catch  at  her  heart,  though  the  flame  of  defiance 
in  her  still  flickered. 

"  I  thank  you,  Messer.  For  when  is  my  doom 
pronounced  ?  " 

Whereat  the  envoy  had  raised  one  white  hand 
ineffably. 

"  Alas,  Madonna  1  Is  our  dear  prince's  tender 
consideration  so  hurtful?  Even  now  he  waits 
to  welcome  you.*1 

Then  she  had  put  out  entreating  arms  to  him. 

"  Messer— a    little    time    to    prepare— to    say 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO  75 

goodbye.  I  have  a  son,  Messer,  a  very  little1 
child.  Look,  this  is  the  Vecchio,  is  it  not — the 
Duke's  palace?  I  am  quite  alone  in  my  corner 
of  it,  caged,  shunned  like  a  leper,  yet  my  every 
exit  from  it  is  guarded.  Give  me  this  night 
in  which  to  part  seemingly  with  all  I  have  left 
to  love  on  earth." 

'His  laugh  had  sounded  like  the  tinkle  of  ice 
on  glass. 

"Love?  You  wilfully  postpone  it,  madam. 
Yet  will  I  venture  to  enlarge  upon  my  creden* 
tials  to  the  extent  your  Grace  demands. 
To  -morrow ' ' 

"  I  will  deliver  myself  without  fail  to  the 
sacrifice,  Messer." 

And,  with  a  patient,  deprecating  shrug,  in 
which  shoulders,  eyebrows,  and  lips  were  all  in- 
cluded, he  had  made  his  profound  obeisance, 
and  left  her.  And  then  I  < 

It  came  upon  her  like  a  stroke,  electric, 
instant,  agonising  out  of  numbness,  She  did 
not  want  to  die ;  she  had  only  been  trickinjg 
herself  in  the  trappings  of  tragedy ;  like  the 
spoiled  beauty  she  was,  she  had  believed  her- 
self irresistible  though  playing  with  devils  ;  and 
each  day's  grace  had  but  confirmed  her  in  her 


76  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

wilful  self-delusion.  And  now  at  last  she  was 
awake  and  mad  with  fear — confessed  now  to  her- 
self for  the  unheroic  creature  of  selfishness  and 
vanity  which  her  deeds  had  already  proclaimed 
her  to  the  world. 

Passion,  indeed,  often  speaks  big  until  it  finds 
itself  trapped.  Its  artificial  heat  is  very  suscep- 
tible to  chills.  Then,  in  proportion  as  it  has 
burned  furious,  is  the  abjectness  of  its  relapse. 
I  speak  of  it  as  an  emotion  apart  from  love. 
This  poor  Leonora,  in  her  craven  frenzy,  con- 
doned in  her  mind  the  offences  of  the  monster 
in  whose  relentless  grasp  she  now  felt  herself 
writhing.  Her  leaning  towards  him,  her  desire 
to  propitiate,  was  like  a  lust.  She  would  swear 
herself  his  creature,  his  sympathiser,  his  fellow- 
passionist,  if  only  he  would  accept  and  spare 
her  as  such.  Do  not  blame  her  over-harshly. 
The  spirit  crazed  with  fear  of  darkness  has  no 
volition  but  towards  the  light.  Moreover,  the 
catalogue  of  the  deadly  sins  was  much  confused 
in  her  time,  and  some  crimes  which  in  our  day 
would  be  held  unpardonable  were  avowed 
pleasantries.  The  butterfly  bred  to  carrion  is 
not  easily  weaned  to  honey — our  own  fair  Purple  - 
Emperor  is  an  example — and  grapes  fattened  on 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO  77 

bullocks'  blood  wither  deprived  of  it.  What 
wonder  that  this  poor  lovely  creature,  bred  on 
corruption,  confessed  her  tastes  vitiated  ?  It  was 
life  she  wanted,  and,  at  the  last,  even  with  Pietro 
da  Medici  for  her  boon -fellow.  The  woman  was 
debased  ;  yet  the  mother  remained.  It  had  been 
already  dusk  when  the  envoy  withdrew.  Now, 
with  streaming  eyes  and  labouring  bosom,  she 
hurried  to  spend  her  last  night  on  earth  by  the 
cradle  of  her  little  Cosimo. 

***** 

With  dawn  came  hope,  came  the  jocund  re- 
assurance of  the  sun,  of  the  familiar  greetings 
and  services  and  customs.  It  seemed  impossible 
that  tragedy  could  be  lurking  behind  that  kindly 
commonplace.  Leonora's  spirits  rose  with  the 
morning,  heightened  with  the  glowing  day.  Had 
the  conquering  glory  of  her  beauty  served  her 
hitherto  so  implicitly  to  fail  her  now?  If 
jealousy  were  at  the  bottom  of  this  resentment, 
she  carried  the  sweetest  antidote  to  it  in  her 
bosom.  Imploring  eyes,  lovely  submission  and 
lovely  solicitation — so  she  acted  the  part  of  a 
prostitute  in  her  soul,  and  almost  counted  the 
hours  to  the  end. 

In  the  late  afternoon  she  was  informed,  un- 


78  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

asked,  that  a  carriage  and  escort  awaited  her  in 
the  court  by  the  Via  de  Leone.  Half  hysterical, 
she  sought  her  little  boy  for  the  last  time,  and 
her  tears  ran  salt  over  his  face  as  she  kissed 
him. 

"  Love  mummia,  bambinetto,  always,  al- 
ways I  " 

It  was  the  attitude  of  her  escort  that  first 
struck  a  chill  into  her,  and  caused  a  declension 
in  her  high  spirits.  They  may  have  been 
ignorant  of  her  purposed  fate ;  but  she  was 
under  a  ban,  and  they  were  under  orders. 
These,  it  was  evident,  included  uncommunica- 
tiveness,  rigid  surveillance,  impassive  force. 
The  Villa  Cafaggiodo  lay  at  some  distance 
beyond  the  walls  in  a  lonely  country.  The 
young  Duchess  employed  every  artifice  to  delay 
the  journey,  now  a  purchase  she  must  make, 
now  a  friend  she  must  speak  to,  now  a  church 
she  must  visit .  She  was  never  denied ;  she 
was  humoured — and  watched — in  everything.  A 
subtler  treatment  had,  perhaps,  allayed  her 
alarms  entirely,  as  it  was  evidently  the  pbject 
of  the  escort  to  evade  attention  or  suspicion  ; 
but  these  common  minds  had  not  the  savoir  faire 
to  throw  off  the  weight  of  responsibility  tinder 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO       .      79 

which  they  laboured.  At  length  they  left  the 
city  behind,  and  came  into  the  open  country— 
an  abandonment  which  the  girl  had  dreaded 
unspeakably,  and  resisted  as  long;  as  possible. 

And  here  Madama  must  alight  to  pick  the 
wayside  flowers — for  the  month  was  July — and 
again,  and  yet  again  when  she  saw  one  more 
beautiful  than  the  rest ;  so  that  dusk  was 
beginning  to  fall,  windless  and  melancholy,  when 
they  came  in  sight  of  the  villa.  But  there  was 
no  thought  of  flowers  in  her  soul,  then  or  a,t 
any  time ;  and  the  loveliest  of  all  the  blossoms 
lay  crushed  in  her  little  hand  when  at  last  the 
carriage  rolled  into  the  courtyard  of  the  Villa 
Cafaggiodo,  and  the  attendants  came  round  to 
the  door  to  help  her  alight. 

She  looked  up  at  the  frowning  portal,  at  the 
lifeless  galleries,  and  shrank  back. 

"  My  lord  does  not  entertain?  "  she  whispered. 

"It  is  his  will  to  be  alone,  Madonna,"  they 
answered  low. 

•Hardly  conscious  of  her  limbs,  swaying  a 
little,  she  mounted  the  steps,  and  saw  an  open 
door  before  her.  Standing  there,  as  in  a  fear- 
ful dream,  she  heard  a  sudden  sound  below, 
and  started  and  turned.  The  carriage,  the 


80  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

escort,  were  all  in  retreat,  returning  by  the  road 
they  had  come.  She  tried  to  call  to  them— her 
dry  throat  would  not  articulate ;  she  made  a 
panic  move  as  if  to  descend,  and  paused  again. 
They  had  closed  and  bolted  the  gates  behind 
them  ;  she  was  left  quite  alone  and  unprotected 
in  that  deserted  place. 

There  was  no  voice  of  anything  but  a  little 
garrulous  fountain,  which  giggled  and  choked  in 
the  courtyard.  The  cold,  grey  house-front  rose 
above  her ;  behind  and  to  either  side  the 
cypresses  reared  their  inky  minarets  against  an 
empty  sky.  In  the  spaces  between,  the  bushes 
and  flowering  shrubs  were  already  clouds  of 
impenetrable  shadow,  palpitating  with  sugges- 
tion. What  might  not  be  beyond  or  within 
them,  watching  for  her  descent — eyes,  horrible 
eyes  !  With  a  shudder  she  turned  to  the  door, 
and  saw  the  vast  spaces  of  the  vestibule,  melan- 
choly, cavernous,  waiting  to  engulf  her.  But 
not  a  sound  came  from  them,  or  from  anywhere. 
The  place  seemed  wholly  vacant  and  deserted. 

Hush  !  a  whisper— a  footstep  creeping  on  the 
stones  of  the  court  below.  Without  pausing  to 
look  or  convince  herself,  she  fled  into  the  great 
hall,  and  found  herself  at  the  foot  of  the  stair- 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO        -     81 

case,  breathing  in  a  mortal  fear,  clutching  at 
the  balustrade  for  support.  A  faint  glow  from 
the  dying  day  smeared  the  marble  walls,  and 
illumined  the  limbs  of  a  dozen  statues  as  if  with 
phosphorescence.  But  the  pits  of  blackness 
between,  more  dense  in  consequence,  were 
dreadfully  potential  of  evil,  and,  half  swooning, 
she  turned  to  the  staircase  as  her  only  resource. 
There  was  a  room  above — a  room  she  knew  and 
had  slept  in — and  thither,  as  to  her  one  ark  of 
refuge  in  that  mad  flight,  she  instinctively  made. 
If  she  could  only  reach  it  before  she  died  of 
terror  ! 

She  was  there,  had  put  out  a  shaking  hand  to 
part  the  tapestry  on  the  wall,  when  something, 
unfamiliar  to  her  even  in  her  blind  agitation, 
made  her  shrink  back  with  a  shock  like 
death.  She  knew  the  woven  picture — Herodias's 
daughter,  and  the  dark  arm  of  the  executioner 
holding  the  bleeding  head  over  the  charger.  But 
now  the  poised  hand  seemed  empty — the  head 
had  run  to  a  point — in  a  sudden  sick  fascina- 
tion she  peered  forward  to  examine  it. 

God  in  heaven  !  the  arm  was  actual  and 
living  ;  the  fingers  gripped  a  dagger  ! 

And,  even  as  she  uttered  a  little  whining  cry, 

6 


82  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  Pero  !    per  pietk  !  "  she  saw  a  mad  gleam  at 
the  crevice,  and  the  arm  struck  down. 

Her  scream  was  still  echoing  through  the 
empty  house  as  a  grinning,  soft-snarling  beast 
parted  the  arras,  and,  leaping  over  the  prostrate 
body,  turned  and  bent  gloatingly  to  view  it.  His 
poniard  stood  buried  to  the  hilt  in  the  soft  flesh 
of  the  shoulder-blade. 

"  Pietro's  tooth  !  "  he  shrieked  ;  "  Pietro's 
tooth  !  "  His  laugh  reeled  and  babbled  among 
the  galleries  as  if  scores  of  invisible  feet  were 
suddenly  running  down  to  the  scene  of  the  crime. 

He  paused,  he  listened ;  with  an  awful  look 
he  suddenly  cast  himself  on  his  knees  by  the 
murdered  child,  and,  raising  his  bloody  hands, 
besought,  in  a  shaking  voice  and  with  tears 
streaming  down  his  cheeks,  Heaven's  pardon  for 
his  crime,  vowing,  in  expiation  of  it,  never  to 
marry  again. 

With  moans  and  sobs  he  then  raised  the  poor 
body,  silent  to  his  remorse  as  to  his  hate,  and, 
passionately  kissing  the  lips,  grown  desirable  to 
him  only  in  death,  with  his  own  hands  laid  it 
in  the  coffin  he  had  ready  prepared  for  it  in  the 
very  chamber  to  which  the  living  soul  had  fled, 
in  thought,  for  refuge. 


LEONORA    OF    TOLEDO         .    83 

That  same  night  it  was  secretly  conveyed  to 
Florence,  and  buried  in  the  Church  of  San 
Lorenzo.  The  murderer  married  Beatrice  de 
Menesser  seventeen  years  later.  But,  no  doubt, 
by  then,  as  a  great  romancer  remarked,  he  had 
not  only  forgotten  his  vow,  but  that  any  reason 
had  ever  existed  for  his  making  one.  God,  in 
mediaeval  Italy,  was  credited  with  as  short  a 
memory  as  man,  and  with  a  much  more  amiable 
credulity. 


CHARLES    IX 

"  SCATTER  them,  scatter  them  ere  the  Death 
cometh!  They  are  like  black  crows  seeking 
carrion,  and  where  they  watch  some  soul  is 
doomed  to  hell.  From  afar  they  spy  their  prey, 
and  on  the  roof  they  gather,  waiting  till  it  fall." 

These  words  of  a  fanatic  priest,  denouncing 
the  Huguenots,  were  for  ever  in  his  brain  from 
the  moment  of  the  rising  of  the  dark  bird.  They 
had  rung  in  its  haunted  corridors  before,  had 
he  known  it ;  but  it  was  the  rising  of  the  bird 
which  had  doomed  it  to  their  eternal  possession. 
It  had  happened  in  this  way : 

With  the  first  weak  breaking  of  dawn,  three 
pallid,  guilty  figures  came  stealing  into  a  little 
chamber  of  the  Louvre  which  overlooked  the 
basse-cour  notched  into  that  angle  of  the  palace 
which  faced  towards  St.  Germain  1'Auxerrois. 
They  were  the  King,  his  mother,  and  his  brother 
the  Due  D'Anjou.  An  unnatural  quiet  brooded 


86  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

over  the  city.  It  suggested  the  paralysed  horror 
of  a  sleeper  awakened  to  sudden  consciousness 
of  some  ghastly  presence  in  his  room.  They 
stood,  in  a  little  quaking  group,  peering  from 
the  window  upon  the  courtyard  and  the  quay 
of  the  Louvre,  both  in  seeming  dark  and  empty, 
and  in  seeming  uncannily  close  beneath. 
What  if  some  tigerish  bound  were  to  clear  that 
interval,  and  they,  the  gloating  Caesars  of  the 
arena,  be  made  the  sport  of  their  own  blood- 
lust?  The  King's  hand  twitched  on  the  musque- 
toon  he  carried. 

The  river,  a  livid  tongue,  lapped  up  the 
blackness  ;  the  wind  fell  all  in  a  moment,  like 
a  shot  bird,  and  rustling  its  wings  a  little  on 
the  pavement,  died  and  gave  place  to  silence 
utter  and  profound.  Suddenly  in  the  distance 
a  pistol  rattled  out. 

It  was  followed  by  the  bells.  At  first  it  was 
only  the  tocsin  of  St.  Germain  1'Auxerrois,  the 
shattering  boom  of  the  great  bronze  dome  shout- 
ing death  from  its  tower.  But  soon  other  bells 
took  up  the  tale,  the  signal  leaping  on  from  height 
to  height,  as  warning  beacons  are  fired,  and  in 
the  same  breath  the  streets  were  full  of  armed 
men.  They  seemed  to  spring  from  the  ground, 


CHARLES    IX  87 

like  the  dragon  men  of  Thebes,  and  to  fall  as 
instantly  to  slaughter  and  destruction,  Every 
second  they  gathered,  and  roaring  and  sweeping 
on,  crashed  in  the  last  defences  of  sleep  and 
woke  the  city  to  pandemonium.  And  then  came 
the  King's  madness. 

He  had  fought  against  it  to  the  end.  Even 
in  the  little  ghostly  chamber  his  soul  had  risen, 
in  a  final  revolt  of  sanity,  against  the  merciless 
policy  which  had  set  itself  deliberately  to  under- 
mine his  reason.  But  he  had  not  the  strength 
to  escape.  His  hand,  with  the  dagger  in  it, 
had  been  held  from  first  to  last  by  his  mother 
Catherine,  as  mothers  of  a  human  mould  direct 
the  little  stumbling  hands  of  their  children  in 
forming  letters  with  a  pen ;  and  not  to  him  was 
due  the  significance  of  the  characters  which  that 
bloody  stylus  had  written  upon  the  wall.  His  old 
nurse,  indeed,  whom  next  to  Marie  Touchet  and 
her  child  he  most  dearly  loved,  was  a  staunch 
Huguenot.  And  he  kept  the  wit  to  save  her; 
but  he  could  not  save  the  good  Admiral  Coligny 
whom  he  honoured.  His  mother  had  her  way 
with  him  at  last,  and  was  herself  panic -struck 
by  the  fury  of  the  blaze  she  had  fuelled. 

Having   once  tasted   blood,   he   cried  for  it, 


for  more  and  more  until  the  gutters  choked ; 
insulted  the  fallen  who  appealed  to  him  for 
mercy ;  decoyed  the  partisans  of  Conde"  and 
Navarre  into  his  toils  with  cunning  messages, 
and  chuckled  to  see  them  butchered  in  the  Court 
below.  The  roar,  the  rushing  tumult  of  the 
quays,  the  yells  of  the  pursuers,  the  screams  of 
agony  of  the  smitten,  the  bells  and  the  guns, 
all  danced  in  his  mad  veins  and  wrought  him 
to  frenzy.  He  outscreamed  the  victims  ;  he  fired 
at  the  corpses  floating  in  the  river ;  he  laughed 
and  stared  alternately.  Once,  early  in  the 
business,  a  boatful  of  Huguenots,  coming  across 
the  water  from  the  opposite  faubourg,  was 
emptied  out  in  a  twinkling,  and  its  human  load 
dragged  for  slaughter  across  the  stones.  They 
had  believed  it  all  an  affair  of  the  Guisea,  and 
had  come  to  beg  protection  of  the  King.  The 
King  1  what  shadow  of  justification  was  theirs  ? 
A  King  of  shreds  and  patches  1  He  cursed  their 
monstrous  credulity ;  he  pointed  his  piece  and 
fired  straight  into  the  breast  of  the  tallest  fool 
of  them  all,  who  had  fallen  on  his  back  on  the 
stones  immediately  below.  With  the  sound  of 
his  shot  a  great  black  bird  rose  straight  from 
out  the  dead  man,  and  flapping  upwards  with 


CHARLES    IX  89 

solemn  wings,  disappeared  over  the  roof  of  the 
Louvre.  The  King  threw  down  his  musquetoon, 
and  stood  staring. 

They  said  that  it  was  a  raven,  its  master's 
constant  companion,  his  pet,  his  mascot,  which 
he  seldom  let  from  his  bosom  when  he  went 
abroad.  The  King  did  not  contradict  them ; 
the  mortal  distress  in  him  found  even  some 
solace  in  the  fable.  But  in  his  deep  heart  he 
knew  that  the  apparition  had  been  none  other 
than  the  black  soul  of  the  Huguenot,  and  that 
it  had  flown  to  settle  on  the  roof,  to  watch  for 
the  passing  of  another  soul,  his  own,  already 
doomed  by  it  to  hell.  "  Ere  the  death  cometh!  " 
From  that  moment,  as  he  believed,  he  was 
marked  down  ;  and  the  thought  of  how  he  might 
elude  the  bird  on  the  roof  never  left  him.  If 
he  could  only  circumvent  it,  he  might  yet  be 
saved. 

He  was  sitting  with  his  suite,  days  after  the 
massacre,  in  a  chamber  of  the  palace,  when  a 
sudden  uproar  overhead  startled  them  all.  It 
was  evening,  but  the  tapers  were  not  yet  lit. 
The  sound  was  hideous — a  sound  as  of  a  multi- 
tude of  lost  spirits  screaming  and  blaspheming 
in  the  upper  air.  It  was  the  eve  of  St.  Bartholo- 


90  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

mew  all  over  again,  the  pent-up  terrors  of  it 
broken  loose  and  re-enacted.  Even  in  their 
graves,  It  seemed,  the  ghosts  could  not  be  held 
down,  but  had  burst  their  bloody  cerements  and 
risen  in  an  uncontrollable  agony  of  memory. 
Where  would  it  end?  Where  could  it?  There 
was  no  mowing  down  spirits  by  sword  and  fire ; 
they  had  the  upper  hand  now,  and  the  minds 
and  reasons  of  the  living  were  their  ghastly  prey. 
Rising,  as  they  looked  at  one  another  with  grey 
faces,  the  group  one  and  all  sought  the  open 
air. 

.What  was  it?  A  black  cloud  of  crows,  no 
more ;  a  flock  in  constant  motion,  circling, 
settling  and  resettling — calling  for  a  second  glut 
of  victims.  They,  had  learned  to  imitate  the  voices 
of  the  massacre,  screeching,  sobbing,  praying 
— a  horrible  thing.  They  were  the  souls  of  the 
murdered,  ministers  of  hell,  come  to  await  their 
turn  on  the  roof.  The  King  said  no  word,  but 
that  same  night,  after  he  had  slept  a  little  from 
exhaustion,  he  rose  suddenly  in  a  horror  too 
great  for  speech,  and  sat  staring  and  listening. 
His  good  old  nurse  hurried  to  him  ;  he  whispered 
to  her,  Did  she  not  hear  it?  Those  haunted 
chambers  of  his  brain  were  full  of  wild  tramp- 


CHARLES    IX  91 

ings,  and  execrations,  and  the  hubbub  of  a  mad 
conflict.  He  declared  there  was  a  riot  in  the 
town,  that  he  would  have  his  guard  dispatched 
to  end  it,  that  he  wanted  no  more  murder. 
They  returned  in  a  little  to  say  that  the  whole 
city  slept  peaceful  in  the  moonlight,  though  it 
was  true  that  the  air  was  curiously  agitated, 
as  by  the  hot  vapour  above  an  oven.  He  dis- 
missed them,  and  dropped  his  weary  head  upon 
his  nurse's  bosom.  He  was  her  child  again,  her 
nursling,  her  little  frightened  dreamer  waking 
in  the  dark. 

"  They  shall  not  touch  thee,  Chariot,"  she 
whispered.  "  Thou  didst  not  mean  it,  thou." 

For  seven  nights  was  this  repeated,  the  noises, 
the  horror,  the  collapse ;  and  then  the  crows 
departed.  Like  a  black  cloud  they  gathered  in 
a  moment,  and  drifted  away  northwards  to  wait 
for  the  coming  of  the  Armada. 

"  Are  they  all  gone?  "  asked  the  pallid  King. 
He  would  trust  to  nobody  but  his  nurse.  She 
went  out,  and  looked  along  the  ridge  of  the 
roof,  and  returned. 

"  All  but  one,"  she  said ;  "  and  he  is  hurt 
belike,  and  will  not  last  out  the  night." 

"  That   is   the   one,"   he   answered,    "  and  he 


92  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

will  last  out  the  night  of  my  life.  O,  nurse  ! 
he  waiteth  for  my  soul,  and,  so  he  marketh  its 
passage  hence,  he  will  seize  it,  and  I  am  damned 
for  ever." 

"  That  then  shall  he  never  do,  Chariot,"  she 
exclaimed ;  "  for  I  will  have  him  shot  here  and 
now." 

The  King  shook  his  head ;  and,  indeed, 
he  expressed  what  he  knew.  The  crow  was 
never  shot ;  the  bird  seemed  to  bear  a 
charmed  life ;  but  all  of  a  sudden  one  day  it 
was  gone. 

To  say  that  he  breathed  again  would  imply 
but  a  qualified  respite,  inasmuch  as  his  every 
breath  was  a  pain  to  him.  Through  all  that 
autumn  and  through  all  the  ensuing  year  he 
was  a  dying  man,  and  in  the  May  that  followed 
he  lay  down  on  his  bed  for  the  last  time.  At 
the  end  he  spoke  little  but  with  the  shapes  that 
haunted  him.  He  lay  on  his  couch,  wrapped 
in  a  robe  that,  for  all  its  lightness,  it  hurt  his 
chest  to  lift.  He  suffered  intolerably,  both 
mentally  and  physically.  His  faithful  little  wife, 
whose  love  he  had  neglected,  came  and  sat  by 
his  side,  silent,  with  large  haunted  eyes,  and 
prayed  for  him,  and  wept  secretly,  and  blew 


CHARLES    IX  93 

her  little  red  nose  softly  to  explain  her  need  for 
a  handkerchief.  And  Marie  Touchet  came  with 
their  child,  and  wondered  how,  at  the  last,  the 
wreck  of  sweet  royalty  differed  so  little  from 
all  other  human  wrecks.  He  made  his  peace 
with  these,  but  he  could  not  with  himself.  The 
vision  of  the  crow  was  eternally  in  his  mind ; 
his  atom  of  trust  in  the  strong  faith  of  his  nurse 
was  his  solitary  grain  of  comfort  in  a  world  of 
terrors.  He  floated  in  crimson  streams,  and  rose 
choking  from  them,  foul  and  horrible.  "  Ah, 
nurse,"  he  sighed  perpetually,  "  what  blood  and 
what  murders  !  " 

She  was  always  ready  with  the  faith,  with 
the  triumphant  word  that  touched  like  a  healing 
judgment. 

"  Let  them  that  called  the  feast  answer  for 
the  reckoning." 

And  so  the  hours  crept  on  to  the  end. 

One  day,  as  she  watched  alone  beside  him,  he 
fell  asleep.  He  had  made  his  testament  that 
morning,  had  committed  the  sore  destinies  of 
his  kingdom  to  his  mother  and  his  brother  of 
Navarre,  and,  exhausted  with  the  effort,  had 
fallen  back  on  his  pillow,  breathing  out  the 
last  words  he  was  ever  to  utter  on  earth  : 


94  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  I  thank  my  God  that  I  leave  no  male  child 
behind  me  to  wear  my  crown  !  " 

It  was  as  still  as  death.  The  sunshine  came 
through  the  open  window,  and  threw  a  patch 
of  light  on  the  floor.  As  the  tired  nurse  sat 
watching  this,  half  hypnotised  by  the  glow,  of  a 
sudden  she  saw  it  blotted  by  a  soft  shadow.  She 
raised  her  eyes  quickly,  and  there  on  the  window- 
sill,  black  and  motionless,  was  perched  a  great 
crow. 

She  did  not  even  start ;  but  she  turned  her 
head  and  looked  at  the  King's  face.  The  sign 
Of  the  awful  change  was  overspreading  it ;  the 
nostrils  pulsed  ;  the  fingers  below  picked  feebly 
at  the  silken  robe.  In  a  few  moments,  she  saw, 
he  would  be  gone.  She  rose  quickly,  and  moved 
across  to  the  window.  The  dark  bird  never 
stirred.  There  seemed  a  deep,  unearthly  move- 
ment in  the  sleek  gloom  of  its  eyes,  and  that 
was  all.  It  was  absorbed  in  watching,  but 
not  her.  She  flung  out  her  hands,  and  caught 
it  in  a  grip  of  iron. 

"  Chariot  1  "  she  cried,  "  my  babe  !  Die  while 
I  hold  him  !  " 

There  was  a  rustle  behind  her,  a  sudden  cry, 
a  drumming  as  of  feet  running,  speeding  from 


CHARLES    IX  95 

the  earth  and  life  ;  and  then  all  fell  silent .  But 
not  the  bird.  He  leaped  and  battled  in  her  hands. 
His  beak  was  an  inky  dagger,  his  talons  rakes 
of  steel.  His  screams  seared  her  heart — they 
seemed  uttered  in  it ;  his  pinions  beat  on  her 
brain.  But  she  held  on,  driving  in  her  nails,  her 
teeth  set  and  her  resolution.  She  felt  the  blood 
pouring  down  her  wrists,  and  she  cared  no  whit, 
so  long  as  she  could  keep  the  horror  from 
pursuing  her  nursling.  And  presently  the 
struggles  slackened,  and  she  felt  the  bird  die 
in  her  hands. 

Holding  it  thus  away  from  her,  she  went  to 
the  window  and  flung  it  forth.  It  dropped  with- 
out sound,  like  a  shadow  that  had  suddenly  been 
blown  from  her  brain.  She  looked  at  her  hands 
— they  were  unhurt ;  at  the  King — he  lay  with  a 
smile  on  his  dead  lips. 


THE    KING'S    CHAMPION 

"  AND  now,  schentelmen,  about  that  little 
inzident  at  the  goronation  ?  " 

It  was  his  Majesty  King  William  III.  who 
spoke,  crumpled  back  into  his  big  chair.  His 
eyes,  bright  as  a  sparrow's,  peered  from  the  nest 
of  an  enormous  wig.  His  small,  shrewd  features, 
diminutive  frame,  and  legs  like  cribbage-pegs, 
were  the  least  adapted,  one  might  have  thought, 
to  carry  the  extravagant  vesture  of  his  day.  He 
appeared,  indeed,  to  be  always  lost  in  it,  and  as 
if  just  on  the  point  of  finding  his  way  out.  Yet 
the  clothes  of  a  Daniel  Lambert  would  hardly 
have  sufficed  for  his  spirit. 

The  Marquis  of  Halifax,  his  Lord  Privy  Seal, 
smiled,  and  shrugged  his  stout  shoulders  depre- 
catingly.  There  were  four  others  present  in  this 
his  Majesty's  somewhat  melancholy  little  Cabinet 
at  Whitehall :  Lord  Denby,  his  President  of  the 

7  '  w 


98  HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Council,  and  three  solemn  Dutch  mynheers — 
D'Auverquerque,  Schomberg,  and  Zuylestein, 
who  had  been  appointed  respectively  the  King's 
Masters  of  Horse,  Ordnance,  and  the  Robes. 
These  last  were  all  as  grave  as  mustard-pots, 
and  the  subject,  long-expected  and  broached  at 
last,  made  them  graver. 

It  turned  upon  an  incident,  slight  in  itself, 
significant  only  in  its  context,  which  had  struck 
a  discordant  note  in  the  tremendous  ceremonial 
of  the  day  before.  When  the  King's  Champion, 
riding  in  by  the  great  door  of  Westminster,  had 
cast  his  gage  upon  the  floor,  offering  to  prove 
in  person  upon  the  body  of  whomsoever  should 
challenge  the  right  of  King  William  and  Mary 
his  Queen  to  reign  as  sovereign  inheritors  of 
the  realm  that  that  same  dissentient  lied  in  his 
throat  and  was  a  false  traitor,  a  most  unexpected 
response  had  followed.  A  little  old  lady,  dressed 
in  a  watered  tabby  and  mittens,  and  having 
large  spectacles  on  her  nose  and  a  stiff  three- 
storied  commode  of  lace  perched  on  her  white 
hair,  had  darted  from  among  the  spectators,  and, 
whipping  up.  the  steel  glove,  had  returned  it  to 
the  Champion  with  a  whispered  word  or  two,  and 
then  fairly  run  away,  melting  into  the  crowd 


THE    KING'S    CHAMPION  99 

which  thronged  about  the  entrance  before  any 
one  could  think  of  interposing. 

The  affair  had  caused  a  momentary  stir,  and 
even  a  titter,  instantly  subdued  to  the  august 
occasion,  as  Sir  Charles  Dymoke,  the  Champion, 
had  ridden  up  the  Hall,  his  face  as  red  as  fire, 
to  deliver  and  re-deliver  his  cartel. 

But  it  had  not  passed  unobserved  by  the  King 
himself  or  by  those  around  him.  Extinguished 
as  he  had  appeared  to  be  in  his  panoply  of 
purple  and  ermine  and  embroidered  scarlet, 
looking,  as  he  had  risen  at  the  great  table  to 
drink  his  Champion's  health,  for  all  the  world 
like  a  little  over-swaddled  Greek  Icon  elevated 
against  a  background  of  glittering  stained  glass, 
his  diminutive  Majesty  had  had  an  ear  and  an 
eye  for  everything  within  the  longest  range  of 
either.  His  birdlike  optics,  bright  as  twin 
buttons  sunk  amid  that  pomp  of  raiment,  had 
been  fully  cognisant  of  the  little  episode,  and 
had  watched  the  after-approach  of  his  Champion 
with  an  unwinking  interest,  which  had  seemed 
to  concentrate  itself  to  such  a  challenging  focus 
on  the  flushed  face  of  the  knight  as  he  came 
near,  that  that  doughty  Paladin  had  fallen  into 
confusion  and  had  something  botched  the  busi- 


100         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

ness  of  the  toast  that  followed.  However,  he 
had  managed,  though  crestfallen,  to  retire 
presently  with  sufficient  aplomb  and  his  per- 
quisite of  a  golden  beaker ;  and  there  for  the 
moment  the  matter  had  ended. 

"  Sir       Charles      Dymoke,"       began       Lord 

Halifax 

'•Who  is  dat  man?"  interrupted  the  King. 
"  Vat  is  his  title  to  the  bost?  " 

"It  is  claimed  by  him,  sire,"  answered  the 
peer,  "in  his  right  of  the  Manor  of  Scrivelsby. 
The  office  was  originally  deputed,  I  understand, 
to  Sir  Richard  de  Marmyon  by  the  Conqueror, 
and  hath  descended  by  virtue  of  that  tenure  to 
this  day.  Sir  Charles  is  its  legitimate  repre- 
sentative." 

"  Well,"  said  the  King,  "  broduce  him  before 
us." 

"  Why,"  said  the  Marquis  feebly,  "  that  is  the 
odd  thing.  Sir  Charles  is  nowhere  to  be  found." 

The  three  Dutch  mynheers  uttered  guttural 
sounds  in  their  throats,  and  looked  at  one  another 
and  at  the  King  significantly. 

His  Majesty's  brows  knotted. 

"  Dat  is  very  vonny,"  he  said.  "  Not  to  be 
vound,  mein  vrent  ?  ' 


THE    KING'S    CHAMPION          101 

"  It  has  been  ascertained,  your  Majesty,"  said 
Lord  Deriby  wearily — he  was  a  picked  white  bone 
of  a  man,  with  no  stomach  and  yet  a  perpetual 
stomach-ache,  which  naturally  aggrieved  him — : 
"  that  Sir  Charles  rode,  immediately  after  the 
ceremony,  to  the  '  Cock  '  hostelry  in  Tothill 
Street,  whence,  having  disencumbered  himself  of 

his  panoply,  he  continued  his  way  to  the  riding- 

*— 

school  of  one  Dobney,  near  Islington,  where  he 
delivered  up  his  horse  and  disappeared.  Since 
when  he  has  neither  returned  to  his  inn  nor 
vouchsafed  the  least  token  of  his  existence." 

The  King  considered  the  matter  very  glumpily 
within  himself.  It  appeared  a  trifle  ;  yet  trifles 
might  easily  be  under-estimated  in  the  existing 
state  of  things.  The  incident  was  something 
or  nothing — a  mere  meaningless  frolic,  or  a 
challenge  to  his  title  bearing  a  certain  signifi- 
cance. The  land  swarmed  with  Jacobites  of 
more  or  less  power  and  prominence.  What  if 
one  of  them  were  to  meet  and  defeat  his 
Champion  ?  How,  in  that  event,  would  his  claim 
stand?  What  was  the  procedure?  It  was  an 
odd  contingency,  and  he  put  it  rather  acridly 
to  my  Lord  Privy  Seal. 

"  He  drow  de  gage  ;    anodder  agcept  it ;    dey 


102         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

.vight ;  my  man  vail.  Vat  is  to  vollow?"  he 
demanded. 

11  Ja  !  Dat  is  vat  strike  idself  into  me  bom- 
bom,"  said  Schomberg  the  warrior. 

Lord  Halifax  smiled  rather  sheepishly.  'He 
was  a  large,  tolerant  soul  of  sixty,  repudiating  all 
sentiment  and  subject  to  much.  He  had  been 
called  the  "  Trimmer  "  ;  but,  then,  no  man  of 
humour  can  ever  be  a  man  of  convictions .  Kind, 
witty,  and  cynical,  he  was  yet  so  fond  of  Reason 
that  he  could  make  a  fool  of  himself  with  her. 
He  was  even  worked  upon  to  do  so  in  the  present 
case. 

"  There  is  positively  no  precedent,  sire,"  he 
said.  "  To  my  certain  knowledge  the  thing  has 
never  happened  before." 

"  Bot  zhould  it  jost  zo  happen?  "  insisted  his 
master . 

"  Ach  !  "  said  D'Auverquerque  penetratingly. 

"  With  deference,  sire,"  said  his  lordship, 
"is  it  not  something  premature  to  assume  any 
hostile  intent  in  the  matter  ?  The  good  lady— 

"  Posh  1  "  put  in  the  King  irritably.  "  Neither 
goot  nor  lady." 

"  Zo  it  strike  itself  into  mein  head  bom-bom," 
said  Schomberg. 


THE    KING'S    CHAMPION          103 

"  Dat  dress  vas  a  masgerade,"  said  William: — 
"  a  vact,  we  zhould  haf  gonsidered,  blain  to  the 
stupidest  indelligence." 

"  Certainly,  certainly,"  agreed  Lord  'Halifax 
nervously. 

"Veil,  sir— vat  den?" 

"  Ach !  vat  den?"  demanded  D'Auver- 
querque  cunningly. 

"  I  vill  dell  your  lordship,"  said  Schom'berg. 
'*  Dere  was  a  vine  swordsman  gonzealed  under 
dose  bettigoats." 

The  Lord  Privy  Seal,  considering  the  subject, 
woke  to  a  certain  trepidation. 

"It  is  impossible,"  he  admitted,  "  to  avoid 
attaching  a  measure  of  importance  to  the  affair, 
or  to  gauge  its  consequences  should  it  be  carried 
through.  Surely  Sir  Charles  could  not  be  so 
foolish  as  to  risk  a  serious  encounter?  But  he 
must  be  found  and  warned  at  all  costs." 

His  mood  communicated  itself  to  the  others. 
The  matter  began  to  assume  with  them  all  an 
increasingly  sinister  aspect.  Majesty  was  not 
yet  so  safe  on  its  throne  that  omens  could  be 
disregarded.  The  King,  prompt  and  tireless,  for 
all  his  sickly  constitution,  in  business — the  little 
man  who  was  to  regain  for  England  her  reputa- 


104         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

tion  for  workaday  sanity — had  yet,  at  this 
beginning,  a  vast  estate  to  recover  from  chaos, 
and  his  path  was  beset  with  perils.  The  country 
was  still  in  two  minds,  and  each  distracted  ;  a 
trifle  might  upset  the  balance.  Deliberating  in 
this  sort,  a  species  of  hysteria  communicated 
itself  after  a  time  from  one  to  another  of  the 
little  Council,  until  it  definitely  came  to  perceive 
in  the  episode  a  daring  ruse  for  bringing  about 
a  reaction  in  popular  sentiment.  What  if  the 
meeting  were  actually  to  occur,  and  the 
Champion  to  be  overthrown?  It  was  not  to  be 
doubted  that  the  event  would  have  been  pro- 
vided for,  and  those  engaged  in  bringing  it  about 
forearmed.  Defeat  might  result  in  riot,  and  riot 
in  revolution.  Arrived  at  that  pitch  of  the 
debate,  the  six  gentlemen,  including  his  Majesty, 
were  all  speaking  together  in  considerable 
agitation . 

It  was  the  personality  of  the  mysterious 
Mohock,  once  convicted  of  masculinity,  which 
most  exercised  their  minds.  He  was  certainly 
an  individual  of  importance,  as  so  momentous  a 
mission  would  hardly  have  been  entrusted  to  a 
nonentity.  But  who?  A  dozen  names  suggested 
themselves.  Berwick,  Tyrconnel,  Lord  Henry 


THE    KING'S    CHAMPION          105 

Fitzjames,  the  ex -monarch's  natural  son,  Marl- 
borough  himself,  and  others.  It  was  Zuylestein, 
speaking  for  the  first  and  last  time,  who  finally 
put  the  spark  to  all  this  accumulating  tow. 
'  Vat,"  he  said,  "  if  it  is  James  himselv,  zegretly 
gom  over  from  St.  Germains  and  resolved  upon 
venturing  dis  bigduresque  abbeal  to  de  poblic?  " 

"  Bom-bom  !  "  said  Schomberg. 

He  rose,  Halifax  rose,  they  all  rose,  and  faced 
the  King. 

'*  Ik  dank  U,  mijnheer,"  said  his  Majesty ; 
"  it  is  a  very  blausible  suggestion." 

The  words  were  equivalent  to  a  bid  to  action. 
The  Council  broke  up  hurriedly,  and  within  an 
hour  the  Dutch  troops  had  been  beaten  to  arms, 
the  militia  called  out,  the  magistrates  warned, 
and  the  whole  city  placed  under  a  surveillance 
of  the  most  searching  description.  It  was  at  this 
momentous  pass,  when  panic  was  in  the  air,  that 
Sir  Charles  Dymoke  walked  unconcerned  into 
the  "  Cock  "  tavern,  in  Tothill  Street,  and  was 
immediately  arrested  by  the  guard  set  to  watch 
that  hostelry,  and  conveyed  in  a  state  of  complete 
stupefaction  to  Whitehall .  He  was  taken  at  once 
before  the  King  sitting  in  Council. 

"  Vere  haf  you  been  ?  "  demanded  William 
sternly. 


106         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  Your  Majesty  1  "  gasped  the  Champion,  a 
sturdy  gallant  of  middle  age. 

"  Answer,  sir,"  said  the  monarch—"  and 
vidout  eguivocation." 

"  I  have  been  with  a  friend,"  stammered  Sir 
Charles,  all  amazement. 

"  Ach  1  "  exclaimed  his  Majesty  sarcastically. 
'  The  vrow,  vas  it,  vat  returnt  you  your  gage 
in  the  Hall  yesterday  ?  " 

"  Certainly  not,  sire,"  said  the  Champion,  the 
flush  of  outrage  on  his  cheek. 

"  Not?  "  said  the  King.  "  Who  vas  she,  den, 
dat  voman?  " 

'  The  wife  of  Dobney,  the  horse-tamer,  sire." 

"  The  vife — vat !     Vat  had  she  said  to  you?  " 

"  She  said,  your  Majesty,  '  Didn't  I  warn  you 
not  to  throw  it  down  in  front  of  her  nose,  unless 
you  want  her  to  kneel  and  pick  it  up  ?  ' 

"She?    Who?" 

"  The  mare,  sire.    She  performs  at  Islington." 

"  Your  Majesty,"  said  the  Lord  Privy  Seal 
very  softly,  "  shall  we  thank  Sir  Charles  and 
proceed  to  the  order  of  the  day?  " 

"  Bom-bom  !  "  said  Schomberg  under  his 
breath. 


QUEEN   ELIZABETH 

"  WHAT  was  that?  " 

"  Madam,  it  was  the  snow  falling  from  the 
roof." 

"  Methought  it  was  a  footstep." 

"  No,  madam." 

'  There,  heard  you  it  not — the  sound  of  some 
one  running?  " 

"  But  a  rat  behind  the  wainscot.  Your  Grace's 
ears  deceive  you." 

"  What,  for  ever  ?  Poor  ears,  so  curst  to  lies 
and  flattery  !  " 

"  Your  Highness  is  overwrought." 
'  Will  some  one  speak  the  truth  to  me  before 
I  die  ?     God,  how  my  bones  ache  !     No  step  ? 
Go  look  in  the  gallery,  child." 

The  girl  to  whom  she  spoke,  leaving  her  em- 
broidery-frame, stepped  lightly  to  the  door, 
glanced  this  way  and  that,  and  returned.  Her 
young  eyes  shone  humid  between  pity  and  awe. 


107 


108         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  No,  indeed,  madam,"  she  said  low.  "  The 
corridor  is  empty." 

The  Queen,  without  answering,  crossed  to  the 
window  and  stood  staring  from  it.  It  looked 
upon  the  privy  garden  of  Whitehall,  now  one 
carpet  of  quiet,  sad-coloured  snow  with  the  river 
ruled  across  its  far  end  like  an  inky  mourning 
border.  A  motionless  fog  brooded  over  the 
trees  and  over  the  palace  buildings  trooped  to 
right  and  left.  There  seemed  no  sign  of  life 
anywhere. 

Within,  a  glare  of  fire  burning  on  a  great 
stone -hooded  hearth  dashed  the  wainscoting  with 
red,  and  crimsoned  the  hands  and  faces  of  the 
figures  in  the  panels  of  tapestry,  and  touched 
the  gold  groining  of  the  ceiling  and  the  fresh 
rushes  on  the  floor  with  smears  like  blood.  The 
old  eyes,  gazing  so  fixedly  across  the  snow, 
seemed  streaked  with  the  same  ruddy  hue,  but 
reflected  from  another  and  an  inward  fire .  As  to 
the  first,  she  was  ever  disdainfully  insensible  to 
cold,  this  gaunt,  strong  old  Tudor  woman. 

Two  ladies-in-waiting,  a  mother  and  her 
daughter,  had  their  places  by  the  hearth,  where 
they  embroidered  together,  the  former  seated, 
the  child  bending  over.  They  were  the  Queen's 


QUEEN    ELIZABETH  109 

only  attendants  for  the  moment,  since  her 
Majesty  was  in  that  tortured  frame  of  mind  when 
her  own  sole  company  was  but  less  terrible  to 
her  than  the  thought  of  an  officious  suite,  veiling 
curiosity  under  devotion.  Human  neighbour- 
hood, silent,  tactful,  unobtrusive,  was  the  balm 
her  torn  soul  most  needed ;  any  ostentatious 
sympathy  would  have  maddened  her.  She  could 
abandon  herself  to  herself  beside  this  gentle  pair, 
as  if  they  were  no  more  than  inarticulate  animals 
— wistful  dumb  affections  on  which  she  could 
lean  her  voluble  heart,  certain  of  their  un- 
conscious understanding . 

Now  the  younger  lady,  returning  to  her  place, 
stood  awe -struck  a  moment,  then  bent  and 
whispered  to  her  mother :  "  O,  madam,  the 
Tower  gun  !  How  shall  we  close  her  Grace's 
ears  to  it?  " 

The  Queen,  hearing  the  whisper  but  not  its 
import,  started,  and,  with  a  deep  flurried  sigh, 
turned  round.  The  wild  tumult  of  thoughts  in 
her  mind  found  expression  in  detached  and 
broken  questions,  abstractions,  self-communings. 

"  '  All  wounds  have  scars  but  that  of  fantasy, 
all  affections  their  relenting  but  that  of  woman- 
kind.' Who  writ  those  words  ?  Not  the  mutinous 


110         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

boy.  Twas  Raleigh — he  that  saw  us  like  Dian, 
the  gentle  wind  blowing  the  hair  from  our  face. 
Essex  never  spoke  such  balm.  He  was  no 
courtier — the  worse  for  him.  Am  I  like  Dian?  " 

The  elder  lady  had  arisen  hurriedly,  and  stood, 
her  daughter  clinging  to  her  arm,  to  answer  to 
the  voice,  which  appeared  to  have  addressed  her. 

'  Yes,  madam,"  she  whispered  low. 

"  He  never  flattered,  I  say,"  went  on  the 
Queen.  "  He  was  too  honest — the  devil  damn 
honesty  1  What  day  is  it  ?  " 

'  Your  Highness,"  was  the  tremulous  answer, 
"  it  is  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  February." 

She  had  known  it  well  enough.  All  night 
within  her  haunted  brain  the  horror  of  this 
coming  day  had  brooded — this  ghastly  morning 
when  on  Tower  Hill  the  young  Earl  of  Essex 
— he  was  but  thirty-four — was  to  pay  the  penalty 
of  his  madness.  She  stood  staring  before  her, 
like  one  tranced. 

"  Never  flattered,"  she  repeated—"  a  bad 
policy  where  a  woman  reigns.  The  twenty-fifth, 
is  it?  Let  us  know  if  my  Lord  of  Essex  sends 
or  writes." 

"  Yes,  madam — O,  yes,  indeed  I  " 

The  girl,  leaning  to  her  mother,  buried  her 
pale  face  in  her  shoulder. 


QUEEN    ELIZABETH  111 

"  Hush  !  "  whispered  the  Queen  ;  "  was  not 
that  a  step?  " 

"  Indeed,  madam,  I  cannot  hear  a  sound." 

"  A  stubborn,  relentless  dog  !  "  muttered  the 
Queen  hoarsely.  "  Let  the  axe  convince  him. 
He  will  see  clearer  being  dead — no  longer  dub 
my  mind  as  crooked  as  my  body ;  learn  that 
the  soul's  glory  waxeth  with  the  years,  striving 
to  slough  its  vesture,  like  a  snake.  A  fool,  that 
cannot  penetrate  that  crackling  veil,  and  see, 
other  than  a  boy,  how  Truth  abhors  externals. 
Raleigh  is  older ;  Raleigh  can  look  deeper . 
Shall  I  not  be  Dian  still  to  him?  " 

She  faced  her  frightened  witnesses  with  the 
enormous  challenge — an  old,  arid,  charmless 
woman  of  sixty-eight.  Her  withered,  clay-white 
face  was  latticed  with  countless  wrinkles  ;  her 
nose  was  high  and  pinched ;  her  thin,  bloodless 
lips  parted  to  show  a  ruin  of  blackened  teeth — 
little  spoiled  and  broken  gravestones  recording 
dead  memories .  Her  gullet  pursed  ;  her  eyes 
were  bloodshot ;  the  red  periwig  on  her  poll 
glowed  like  a  dull  flame  over  expiring  ashes. 
Even  her  sloven  dress  betrayed  the  sickness  of 
her  spirit. 

"  Yes,   indeed,   madam,"  said  the   mother. 


112         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  You  lie  !  "  cried  Elizabeth  fiercely.  "  He  is 
false  like  the  rest.  His  eyes  betray  his  lips. 
Their  love-light  is  the  gilding  on  my  crown. 
•When  he  looks  beneath  I  see  mine  image  in 
them,  an  old  and  loveless  woman — barren,  and 
old,  and  loveless.  Do  you  not  hear  my  heart 
cry?  It  turns  on  a  dry  axle.  O,  I  would 
give  my  queenhood  to  weep  !  So  utterly  alone 
— no  child,  no  heir,  no  hope.  They  say  that 
Charles  of  Valois  wasted  and  died  of  poison. 
What  could  he  expect?  Was  he  not  a  prince 
and  curst  to  flattery?" 

She  strode  up  and  down  once  or  twice  in 
intolerable  anguish. 

"  Truth  1  "  she  cried—"  truth  !  And  yet  when 
it  was  mine  at  last,  I  turned  and  struck  it  down." 

"  Not  truth,  your  Grace,  but  jealousy,"  ven- 
tured the  trembling  lady. 

"  Jealousy  1  "  exclaimed  the  Queen,  stopping 
suddenly.  She  stared  at  the  speaker,  her  breath 
falling  from  hard  to  soft.  "  Was  he  jealous, 
think  you?  " 

"  O  I  madam,"  said  the  other,  "  is  it  not 
thy  player,  Master  Shakespeare,  that  calleth 
jealousy  '  green-eyed,'  like  as  with  sour  bile  that 
clouds  the  vision.  The  distempered  speak  dis- 


QUEEN    ELIZABETH  113 

tempered  thoughts,  and  often  turn  the  most 
against  their  most-beloved.  I  count  it  green- 
eyed  jealousy  with  him  because  he  saw  your 
Highness  so  distorted — not  to  extenuate  the 
grievous  crimes  upon  which  his  passions  launched 
him.  O,  pardon  me,  madam  !  " 

The  Queen  stood  with  her  eyes  still  fixed  upon 
the  speaker,  but  it  was  evident  that  their  vision 
took  no  heed  of  her,  though  her  ears  regarded 
the  import  of  her  speech. 

'  Jealous  !  "  she  said,  with  a  tremulous  sigh. 
;<  Mayhap  like  a  silly  quean  I  gave  him  cause, 
sporting  with  my  troth -ring  till  it  rolled  into  the 
well.  He  was  too  sure  and  bold,  forgetting  who 
had  lifted  him,  and  who  could  cast  him  down. 
But,  jealous?  Does  not  his  hair  curl  sweetly 
on  his  forehead,  child?" 

"  O,  madam  !     Your  Grace  !  " 

"  And  his  eyes  so  frank  and  fearless.  Fear  ! 
He  knows  it  not,  the  rash  and  headstrong  fool ! 
To  think  to  overbear  us  ! — teach  our  displeasure 
a  lesson  !  O,  a  venture  once  too  often  !  Be- 
cause he  can  boast  a  strain  of  royal  blood  in  his 
veins  to  dare  to  lift  his  head  at  us  !  to  stamp, 
and  cry  :  '  Now,  madam,  do  you  hear  me  ?  ' 
or  '  I  would  have  it  thus,  or  thus  and  thus.' 

8' 


114         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Such  presumption  !  And  yet  to  see  the  pretty 
lord — his  lip  thrust  out  in  scorn  of  sycophancy — 
a  man  of  men,  brave,  honest,  generous,  and  a 
fool." 

"  Rash  and  foolish  indeed,   your   Highness." 
'  Those  are  but  virtues  in  reverse.     Had  he 
no  cause  to  doubt  the  love  that  made  him  but 
to  ruin?  " 

'  I  cry  your  Grace's  mercy." 

"What  for?" 
'  The   ruin   followed   on   the   treachery." 

"  Was  he  a  traitor  ?  " 

"  O,  Madam  I  did  he  not  curry  favour  with 
the  King  of  Scotland,  and  plot  and  league  to 
win  him  the  succession?" 

"  Yes,  he's  a  traitor." 

*  Your   Grace   forgive   me." 

"  And  I'm  a  woman." 

"  Madam  I  " 

"  At  the  last  I  yield  him  all  my  pride  and 
self-will.  He  hath  so  much  of  me,  'twere  idle 
to  reserve  that  little.  Who  is  that  coming?  " 

"  'Twas  but  the  wind  in  the  corridor,  Madam." 

*'  I  swear  I  heard  him." 

"  No,   Madam." 

"  Pride  !      Will  he  not  meet  us   so  far — but 


QUEEN    ELIZABETH  115 

to  crave  our  clemency?  He  knows  the  way, 
and,  not  taking  it,  must  die.  What  o'clock  is 
it  ?  O,  God,  he  shall  not  die  !  Send  for  my 
lord  Keeper ;  have  horses  ready.  Hush  !  he's 
coming  !  Should  I  not  know  his  footfall?  " 

She  drew  herself  erect  and  away ;  a  flush 
came  to  her  withered  cheek  ;  she  was  the  Queen 
again,  aloof,  haughty,  self-contained.  The  two 
terrified  women,  shrunk  together  into  the 
shadows  by  the  hearth,  saw  her  eyes  gaze  into 
vacancy,  heard  her  lips  address  some  appari- 
tion beyond  their  ken  : 

"  What  imports  this  visit,  my  Lord  of  Essex? 
Who  gave  you  leave  to  come?  Our  Constable 
of  the  Tower  shall  be  roundly  questioned,  trust 
to  us.  What  !  are  you  so  pale  at  last  to  meet 
offended  majesty?  Will  you  not  speak?  Will 
you  not  pray  the  mercy  you  have  abused  in 
us  too  long?  A  viper  in  our  bosom — O,  my 
lord,  that  loved  and  trusted  you  !  What  can  we 
think  or  say,  God  help  us  !  But  we  will  hear 
what  is  to  hear.  So  pale? — the  sickness  of  the 
stones  hath  chilled  thy  fiery  blood.  Why,  I  would 
have  come  to  you,  you  know  well,  if  you  had 
sent  it.  Why  did  you  not  send  it — prouder  than 
thy  Queen?  Where  is  the  ring?  Give  it  me. 


116         HISTORICAL  VIGNETTES 

O,  I  have  waited,  dear  my  love — have  waited 
dying  for  this  token.  Speak — utter  one  word 
of  sorrow,  and  I  will  forgive  thee.  Aye,  kneel 
so  and  bow  thy  comely  head " 

A  burning  log  on  the  hearth  fell  with  a  crash 
and  a  spurt  of  flame ;  a  shrill  agonised  cry 
broke  from  the  lips  of  the  Queen  ;  she  flung  her 
hands  before  her  eyes  : 

"  O,  God  in  heaven  1  The  falling  head  1  They 
are  killing  my  love  !  " 

Weeping  and  trembling,  the  two  women  crept 
from  their  corner.  At  that  instant  a  dull  boom, 
coming  from  down  the  river,  shook  the  glass 
of  the  casement.  The  Queen  dropped  her  hands. 

"What  was  that?"  she  crowed.  Her  face 
was  all  distorted. 

"  Your  Majesty  !  " 

"  What  was  that,  I  say  ?  My  Lord  of  Essex  ! 
'He  was  here  but  now  1  Where  is  he?  " 

"  In  heaven,  by  God's  mercy,  madam.  It 
was  the  Tower  gun." 

The  Queen  sank  down  moaning  where  she 
stood. 


IT  was  a  bitter  Sunday  in  January,  1484.  A 
little  dry  snow  fell  from  time  to  time,  and,  so 
surely  as  its  chill  dust  whitened  the  stones  about 
St.  Paul's  Church,  a  wind,  like  an  officious  tip- 
staff, would  come  and  drive  it  away  right  and 
left,  sweeping  the  pavement  for  bare  footsteps 
that  were  to  follow. 

It  was  all  sad  and  grey  and  wintry.  The 
over-gabled  houses  seemed  to  totter  with  cold ; 
the  signboards  cried  with  it ;  only  the  church 
itself,  half-shrouded  in  mist,  loomed  like  some 
mighty  mountain -crag,  soaring  into  one  solitary 
pinnacle,  spectral,  stupendous,  in  its  midst.  The 
Sabbath  folk  in  the  streets  below,  released  from 
Mass,  wrung  their  frosty  ringers  as  they  lingered 
in  dull  excitement,  waiting  for  the  show  that 
was  to  follow.  They  gathered  in  a  swarm  about 
the  great  west  door.;  but  mostly  they  {flocked 
towards  the  north  side,  where  in  an  open  place 


117 


118         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

stood  the  cross  of  St.  Paul's,  surmounting  the 
leaden  roof  of  a  little  timber  pavilion.  This 
bothy,  or  pulpit,  was  like  a  dovecot  in  shape, 
hexagonal,  and  with  a  window  in  each  of  jits 
six  sides.  That  facing  west  was  furnished  with 
a  lectern  for  the  preacher  ;  and  the  whole  build- 
ing was  reared  on  a  triple  platform  of  stone, 
hexagonal  like  the  other,  and  forming  steps 
to  it. 

Whether  from  the  weather,  or  the  day,  or  the 
occasion,  the  crowd  was  a  curiously  .quiet  one. 
The  weight  of  the  new  King's  authority,  no 
doubt,  rested  upon  it  heavily.  A  general  air 
of  numbness  and  stupefaction  appeared  to  pre- 
vail. Events  of  late  had  come,  matured,  and 
yielded  to  others  so  rapidly.  Edward's  death  in 
April ;  the  disappearance  of  the  young  princes, 
his  sons,  in  June ;  the  new  coronation  in  July ; 
Buckingham's  short  abortive  conspiracy  and 
execution  in  October ;  finally,  in  this  very  first 
month  of  the  new  year,  the  passing  of  the  Titulus 
Regius,  or  Act  which  bastardised  the  late  King's 
issue  and  confirmed  the  crown  to  his  usurper — 
such  was  the  astonishing  tale.  Nothing  was 
evident  for  the  moment  but  that  this  crooked 
fellow  could  see  clearly  and  strike  quickly ; 


JANE    SHORE  119 

that  he  was  bold,  unscrupulous,  and  strong.  He 
was  not  unpopular  for  that,  or  for  certain  manly 
attributes  which  the  crowd  admire.  The  diffi- 
culty was,  as  in  all  sudden  coups  d'etat,  to  adapt 
oneself  politicly  to  the  fresh  conditions,  while 
awaiting  security  from  retaliation  by  the  old. 
The  twisted  King  was  not  so  firm  in  his  seat  as 
a  Pope  of  Rome.  There  was  a  certain  risk  in 
subscribing  even  to  his  pleasantries,  among 
which  the  present  show  might  be  counted. 

No  one  had  properly  believed  in  the  worser 
guilt  of  poor  Mistress  Shore,  the  late  Prince's 
naughty,  good-hearted  mistress.  The  indictment 
which  charged  her  with  complicity  in  the  asserted 
attempt  of  Lord  Hastings,  her  second  protector, 
to  destroy  the  present  King's  life  by  witchcraft, 
had  succeeded  in  proving  nothing  but  her  lovable 
.qualities  of  mind  and  heart ;  whereby  the  Court 
was  obliged  to  fall  back  upon  her  frailty,  which 
was  notorious  and  undeniable .  It  made  no  point, 
indeed,  of  the  real  tragedy  of  her  sinning,  which 
lay  in  her  desertion  of  a  young  husband — a  good, 
honest,  uncorrupt  fellow,  a  prosperous  goldsmith 
of  Lombard  Street — whose  happiness  she  had 
done  her  best  to  wreck,  and  whose  name  ,she 
had  not  had  the  grace  to  exchange  for  another. 


120         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

It  was  really  only  concerned,  at  bottom,  with 
proving  what  an  obnoxious  libertine  had  been 
the  fourth  Edward,  and  how  sweetly  the  crooked 
one  shone  by  contrast.  And  so,  to  make  all 
this  clear,  it  washed,  Pilate -like,  its  hands  of  the 
beautiful  frailty,  and  handed  her  over  to  the 
Churchmen  for  chastisement .  They  were  prompt 
to  deliver  it,  and  not  altogether  inhumanly.  The 
concubine  was  sentenced  to  make  public  con- 
fession of  her  fault,  in  the  prescriptive  deshabille 
of  sheet  and  candle,  and  thereafter  depart  in 
peace  and  mend  her  ways .  The  penalty,  in  fact, 
was  in  process  at  the  moment. 

There  was  not  much  gossip.  The  crowd, 
penned  within  the  multitude  of  low  buildings 
which  surrounded  the  old  Cathedral,  showed 
more  curiosity,  even  sympathy,  than  hostility 
towards  the  delinquent.  Its  constituents  were 
much  the  same  as  when  it  had  listened  six 
months  before  to  Dr.  Shaw's  famous  sermon  at 
the  Cross,  and  that  truckling  divine  had  first 
broached  the  .question  of  the  last  two  Edwards' 
illegitimacy.  It  had  acquiesced  then,  in  the  in- 
sensibility following  exhaustion ;  it  had  not  yet 
recovered  from  that  condition.  This  present 
matter,  or  the  sin  which  had  procured  it,  was 


JANE    SHORE  121 

not  of  a  nature  wont  to  excite  much  comment 
or  reproof ;  but  the  undoubted  popularity  of  the 
usurper  was  confusing  all  issues.  It  supposed 
he  had  a  reason  for  humiliating  pretty  Mrs. 
Shore,  who  had  been  as  notable  for  her  kindness 
as  her  beauty ;  and  so  it  accepted  his  ruling  as 
part  of  the  perplexity  of  things,  which  some  day 
must  be  going  to  lighten. 

She  came  out  in  a  minute,  a  half-dozen  of 
acolytes  preceding,  a  group  of  priests  following 
her.  As  she  appeared  on  the  steps,  a  waft  pf 
wind  took  the  hem  of  the  white  sheet,  which 
was  her  sole  drapery,  and  blew  it  aside  from, 
her  knees.  Her  face,  which  had  been  deadly 
pale,  flushed  to  an  instant  pink,  which  never 
thereafter  deserted  it.  She  clapped  down  her 
hand  in  a  haste  which  extinguished  the  taper 
she  held;  whereat  a  cold  voice  halted  the  pro- 
cession, and  she  must  stand  in  her  shame  while 
the  light  was  being  rekindled.  And  as  they 
came  on  again  she  hung  her  head  and  her  lip 
trembled. 

"  -Her  stature,"  says  an  eye-witness,  "  was 
meane  [  signifying  short  ]  ;  her  haire  of  a  dark 
yellow.;  her  face  round  and  full ;  her  eye  grey, 
delicate  harmony  between  each  part's  proper- 


122         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

tion,  and  each  proportion's  colour ;  her  body 
white  and  smooth  .  .  .  she  went  in  counten- 
ance and  pase  demure,  so  womanlie,  that  albeit 
she  were  out  of  all  araie  save  her  kirtle  onlie, 
yet  went  she  so  faire  and  lovelie,  namelie,  while 
the  woondering  of  the  people  cast  a  comelier  rud 
in  her  cheeks  (of  which  she  before  had  most 
misse),  that  hir  great  shame  was  hir  much  praise 
among  those  that  were  more  amorous  of  hir 
bodie  than  curious  of  hir  soule.  And  manie 
good  folks  that  hated  hir  living  (and  glad  were 
to  see  sin  corrected),  yet  pitied  they  more  hir 
penance  than  rejoised  therein,  when  they  con- 
sidered that  the  King  procured  it  more  of  a 
corrupt  intent,  than  anie  virtuous  affection." 

"  Proper  she  was  and  fair ;  nothing  in  her 
body  that  you  would  have  changed,  but  if  you 
would,  have  wished  her  somewhat  higher"— no 
romancer  can  better  that  description,  and  so  it 
shall  stand. 

She  came  down  the  steps  so  shamed  that  she 
seemed  insensible  to  the  weather.  It  was 
snowing  again,  and  the  flakes  kissed  her  pink 
feet  as  if  in  pity,  and  kissed  her  neck,  and  cried 
into  her  cold  bosom.  She  tried  to  shake  her 
long,  loose  hair  before  her  face. 


JANE    SHORE  123 

Round  by  the  north  side  they  turned ;  and 
so  to  the  pulpit,  where  she  knelt ;  and  all  the 
way  the  people  were  silent.  And  the  Bishop 
mounted  into  the  tribune,  and,  sheltered  in  his 
snuggery,  delivered  a  long  harangue  on  the 
iniquity  of  loose  living.  And  at  the  end  Jie, 
demanded  of  her  if  she  confessed  and  repented ; 
whereat  she  answered,  in  a  voice  all  little  and 
shrunken  :  "  I  do  own  my  fault,  and  ask  pardon 
for  it."  At  which  he  raised  his  tone  and  bade 
her  depart  where  she  would,  and  mend  her  ways 
and  live  cleanly ;  only  first  he  pronounced  the 
King's  mandate,  that  no  man  should  relieve  or 
succour  her  on  pain  of  death,  which  set  many 
marvelling  over  the  reason  which  could  deliver 
with  one  hand  and  deprive  with  the  other. 

Now,  Jane  Shore  rose  like  one  dazed,  and 
the  lighted  taper  fell  from  her  hand,  and  she 
looked  hither  and  thither,  as  if  seeking  where  she 
could  escape  in  her  misery  and  confusion.  And 
all  of  a  sudden  the  cold  seemed  to  smite  her, 
and  she  gathered  the  sheet  about  her  tender 
limbs  and  gave  a  single  cry  like  a  lamb.  And 
in  its  very  utterance  she  had  a  desperate  inspira- 
tion, which  was  to  follow  a  tall  man  who  all  this 
time  had  stood  close  by  among  the  crowd. 


124         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Something — the  shadow  of  a  gesture,  the  look 
in  his  eyes,  close  under  which  his  hand  had 
gathered  his  cloak — had  seemed  to  invite  her, 
and  when  he  moved,  without  appearing  to  pursue 
him  she  followed — on  the  road  to  clean  living. 
But  was  she  the  first  or  the  only  woman  help- 
lessly abandoned  to  the  paradoxes  of  life? 

The  crowd  made  way  for  her,  and  no  |man 
durst  follow.  Soon  she  was  upon  the  outskirts 
of  the  throng,  soon  quit  of  it  altogether.  Some 
whispered  ribaldries,  some  rude  touches  she  had 
to  endure,  and  that  was  all.  She  believed  that 
the  lure  would  not  have  let  her  lose  sight  of 
him ;  and  sure  enough  there  he  was  going  on 
in  front,  a  noble  by  token  of  his  jewelled  bonnet, 
with  the  long  pendant  gathered  from  it  about 
his  neck,  and  the  rich  scarlet  hose  which  showed 
under  his  cloak.  She  thought  well,  desperate 
as  she  was,  not  to  compromise  him,  and  she 
followed  at  a  distance.  He  went  round  by  the 
deserted  east  end  of  the  church,  through  the 
place  that  was  called  Old  Change,  and  so, 
turning  sharp  down  towards  the  river,  made  a 
sudden  twist  among  the  confusion  of  buildings 
there,  and  wheeled  into  a  narrow  way  known 
as  Sermon  Lane,  where  he  loitered  just  sufn- 


JANE    SHORE  125 

ciently  to  enable  her  to  see  him  disappear  into 
a  certain  house.  Clutching  her  sheet  about  her, 
and  watchful  of  suspicious  eyes,  she  stole  on, 
hesitated  a  moment,  and  hurried  in  his  foot- 
steps .  She  may  have  been  observed  or  not ;  in 
any  case  she  was  a  contagion  whom  all  avoided. 
The  door  closed  behind  her  as  she  entered  and 
sank  against  the  wall. 

"  Rise,  madam,"  he  whispered.  He  was  close 
beside  her.  His  voice  was  quick  and  strange. 

She  burst  into  tears  at  once,  passionate,  heart- 
rending, exhausting.  He  let  her  weep  herself 
out,  while  she  crouched  against  the  wall. 
Presently,  the  storm  subsiding,  she  looked 
half  up. 

'Will  you  not  give  me  your  cloak?"  she 
said.  "  I  am  cold." 

"  For  no  other  reason?  "  he  asked. 

She  slunk  down  again. 

"  No,"  she  said.  "  That  were  a  poor  pretence, 
and  meet  for  your  mockery.  I  must  barter  a 
private  place  with  you  against  raiment.  Even 
a  whore  must  go  covered." 

He  stooped  and  took  her,  unresisting,  in  his 
arms,  though  she  held  her  face  averted.  He 
carried  her  impassive  up  the  stairs  of  that  dark, 


126         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

unknown  house,  and  all  the  way  there  was 
passion  in  his  hold  and  grief  in  his  labouring1 
sighs.  She  knew  that  they  had  entered  a  warm 
room,  that  he  had  shut  the  door,  had  placed  her 
gently  on  a  couch  by  the  fire. 

"  Jane  I  "  he  said. 

She  uttered  a  quick,  wild  cry,  and  started 
erect,  so  that  the  sheet  fell  from  her  shoulders. 

"  Cover  them,  in  mercy  to  me,"  he  said. 

She  stared  at  him  a  moment,  then  went  into 
a  sudden  hysteric  laugh.  It  stabbed  him  to 
the  heart  to  hear  her,  for  her  voice  had  ever 
been  merry  and  sweet. 

"  O  !  "  she  cried,  "  that  a  woman  should  be 
so  used  by  her  own  husband  !  " 

"  Nay,"  said  he—"  but  that  I  might  know  you 
still  not  dead  to  shame." 

The  ripple  of  her  laugh  stopped  as  it  had 
begun. 

"  Why  are  you  so  richly  dight,  Harry?  "  she 
said. 

"  A  lure,"  he  answered,  "  to  lead  thee  hither. 
Who  would  win  a  King's  mistress  must  borrow 
peacock's  plumes." 

She  shivered  a  little,  looking  down,  then 
whispered  hoarse  : 


JANE    SHORE  127 

"  Well,  I  am  well  answered.  Yet  you  look 
like  a  noble.  O,  Harry,  speak  like  one  !  " 

"  God  forbid  it,  Jane  !  I  will  speak  like  Harry 
Shore." 

"  He  loved  me  once." 

"  Aye;    he  is  risking  death  to  prove  it." 

She  looked  up  quickly ;  but  before  she  could 
speak  the  door  opened,  and  a  little  boy  peeped 
into  the  room.  He  was  caught  away  in  a 
moment  by  an  unseen  hand,  and  the  door  closed  ; 
but  in  that  instant  the  woman  had  snatched  her 
drapery  about  her  nakedness,  shamed  as  she  had 
never  been  yet. 

"  A  wretch  !  "  she  said,  her  face  on  fire. 

"  Saw'st  thou  his  blue  eyes  and  pretty  curls  ?  " 
said  the  goldsmith.  "  He  is  son  to  my  master - 
setter,  whose  house  this  is.  I  had  dreamed  once 
of  such  a  babe,  mine  own  and  thine." 

She  rose  and  crept  to  him,  looking  in  his 
face.  It  was  a  bronzed  and  honest  one,  though 
drawn  with  pain. 

"  Harry,"  she  whispered,  "  find  me  clothes  and 
bid  me  begone — in  memory  of  our  once  kisses, 
Harry."  ..„'' 

"  They  are  here,"  he  said.  "  Everything  is 
prepared  for  thee — the  means  to  lead  a  blame- 


128         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

less  life  henceforth.  Summon  the  woman  when 
I'm  gone.  I  would  not  have  them  say  ,1  left 
my  wife  to  starve." 

'He  put  out  his  arms,  passion  in  his  eyes,  but 
withdrew  them  resolutely. 

"  Nay,"  he  said ;    "  in  heaven— not  yet." 

He  fell  back  a  little,  and  cried  out  suddenly : 

"  Your  foot,  Jane  !     Poor  foot ;    it  bleeds  !  '? 

He  motioned  her  to  the  couch,  knelt,  lifted 
the  wounded  limb,  and  with  his  napkin 
staunched  the  trickling  blood.  He  held  it  to 
his  breast,  and  at  last,  with  a  long,  yearning 
sigh,  put  his  lips  to  it. 

"  This  hath  atoned,"  he  said — "  so  far  I  shame 
myself,"  and  he  rose.  "  Little  sinful  wife,"  he 
whispered,  "  he  loved  thee  once  ;  he  loves  thee 
ever ;  else  could  he  leave  thee  thus  ?  Now,  let 
me  never  hear  thy  name  again — for  love's  sake 
do  I  ask  it." 

She  had  buried  her  face  in  the  cushions.  And 
there  she  lay,  long  after  he  had  gone,  weeping 
out  her  soul. 


THE    CHAPLAIN    OF    THE    TOWER 

"  MY  son  !  " 

The  kneeling  figure  started  slightly,  hearing 
the  whisper  in  its  ear,  and  half  turned  its  face. 

"  Do  mine  salvum  fac  Re  gem  nostrum  Ricar- 
dum,  my  son." 

The  Benedictine  had  stolen  list-footed  from 
among  the  shadows  of  the  great  pillars,  and 
stood,  a  blacker  shadow,  bending  over  the 
solitary  worshipper  in  the  darkening  chapel  of 
St.  John.  It  was  a  breathless  August  evening 
of  the  year  1483,  and  not  a  sound  penetrated  to 
this  remote  fastness  of  the  Keep. 

"  God  save  the  King,  Father  1  "  answered  the 
suppliant.  It  was  Brackenbury  himself,  Lieu- 
tenant of  the  Tower,  and  a  sore  matter  of  con- 
science had  brought  him  to  this  place.  He  rose 
instantly  to  his  feet. 

"  I  say  it  with  all  my  heart,"  quoth  he.  "God 

9  129 


130         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

save  the  King— from  numbering  himself  among 
his  worst  enemies." 

"  Sh— sh  !  "  whispered  the  chaplain.  "  Sh— 
sh  I  good  Sir  John."  He  put  a  finger  to  his  lips, 
and,  motioning  the  other  forth,  held  him  on  the 
outer  threshold. 

'  To  ensure  the  pure  succession,"  he  said  low. 
'  This    bastard    boy,    Sir    John— a    canker    that 
would  eat  into  the  State.     No  safety  but  in  his 
excision." 

"  For  the  second  time,"  replied  the  knight 
sternly,  "  take  my  answer.  Question,  if  you  will, 
the  blood  that  courses  in  his  veins  ;  question 
not  mine.  That  stoops  to  no  midnight  butchery." 

He  waved  his  hand,  as  if  in  appeal  or  pro- 
test, towards  the  chapel,  and  turned  to  go.  But 
the  priest  detained  him. 

"  A  moment,  good  Sir  John.  The  King  wills 
it." 

"  He  must  find  a  baser  instrument." 

"  Well  so,"  said  the  Benedictine,  "  well  so, 
good  Sir  John.  Only  keep  your  back  to  us, 
saving  your  honour,  and  see  nothing  for  a  little 
space." 

The  Lieutenant,  without  another  word,  strode 
away,  his  harness  clanging  in  the  vaults. 


THE   CHAPLAIN  OF  THE  TOWER     131 

The  covert  priest  stood  listening,  a  smile,  small 
and  hungry,  on  his  lips.  He  hungered,  indeed, 
had  always  hungered,  for  many  things — pre- 
ferment, power,  the  good  immoral  gifts  of 
life  and  indulgences  other  than  Papal.  And 
suddenly,  amazingly,  it  appeared,  they  were 
all  come  within  his  grasp.  He  had  only  to 
persuade  this  master  of  his  to  a  certain  deed, 
by  absolving  him  for  it  before  committed,  and  a 
mitre  awaited  him.  It  had  been  whispered  ,in 
his  ear,  as  he  had  whispered  in  Sir  John's.  The 
abbot  of  his  own  Order  at  Westminster  was 
deeply  involved  with  the  Queen -Do  wager,  to 
whom  he  had  given  sanctuary.  The  crooked 
King  disliked  people  who  sheltered  his  enemies. 
A  motion  of  his  hand  and  the  chaplain  was  in 
the  abbot's  place.  The  seat  awaited  him — it  was 
stupendous,  actual — and,  while  reaching  for  it, 
to  be  baulked  by  a  scruple  of  conscience  not  his 
own  !  The  thing  was  intolerable. 

Abbot  of  St.  Peter's  !  His  lips  watered,  think- 
ing of  it ;  his  eyelids  blinked  and  reddened . 
He  was  a  lean,  famished-looking  body,  with 
sharp-set  features,  and  a  smile  perpetually  on 
his  mouth  between  propitiatory  and  craving .  One 
might  have  counted  his  ribs,  and  never  guessed 


132         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

at  the  dreams  of  surfeit  that   wantoned  under 
them.      He  turned  and  crept  away. 

That  night  a  messenger  rode  from  the  Tower, 
following  hi  the  wake  of  the  royal  progress  north- 
wards. He  found  the  King  where  he  lay  at 
Warwick  Castle,  and,  entering  to  him  at  mid- 
night, whispered  of  Sir  John's  obstinate  density 
and  of  the  chaplain's  better  understanding.  A' 
few  minutes  later  Sir  James  Tyrrell,  Master  of 
the  King's  Horse,  started  on  his  way  back  to 
London.  He  took  with  him  a  brace  of  con- 
fidants, fat  trusty  fellows,  whose  names  should 
be  pilloried  throughout  the  ages.  They  were 
John  Dighton  and  Miles  Forrest,  sinewy  mis- 
creants, as  callous  to  suffering  as  Smithfield 
butchers.  He  took  also  a  royal  warrant,  en- 
trusting to  him,  for  one  night  only,  the  custody 
of  the  fortress,  its  keys  and  passwords ;  and 
finally  he  took,  for  his  personal  comfort  in  the 
business,  a  sure  conviction  of  his  own  damnation . 
Reaching  the  Tower,  he  displayed  his  commis- 
sion, locked  away  all  troublesome  witnesses, 
emptied  the  outer  ward,  to  which  the  public 
had  access,  of  its  loiterers,  and  had  the  place 
to  himself.  Having  done  which,  he  hastened 
with  his  two  ruffians  to  the  gate -house  where 
the  princes  lay. 


THE   CHAPLAIN  OF  THE  TOWER    133 

It  was  a  close,  windless  night,  with  thunder 
brooding  over  the  river.  Every  stone  that 
slipped  under  the  assassin's  feet  jarred  his 
nerves  intolerably.  He  muttered  to  himself  as 
he  walked,  wringing  his  wet  forehead.  The 
shadow  of  a  figure  that  rose  upon  him  from 
the  shadowy  porch  brought  an  oath  from  his 
lips. 

'  Who's   that  ?      Answer,   and   be   damned  !  " 

"  Hist,  good  Sir  James  !  "  whispered  the  crawl- 
ing priest.  "  Curse  not  thine  own  absolver." 

"  A  blasphemy,"  answered  Tyrrell ;  "  or  God 
Himself  is  a  villain.  Come,"  he  said  intoler- 
antly: "  show  us  the  way  to  hell." 

The  Benedictine  crossed  himself. 

"  Ostende  nobis,  Domine,  misericordium 
tuam"  he  murmured.  "  Direct  our  stumbling 
feet  who  seek  the  light  by  dubious  ways.  Give 
me  the  key,  soldier.  It  were  well  that  I  ascended 
first  to  report  if  the  children  sleep.  The  better 
for  them,  the  better  for  us." 

Bending  under  a  low  doorway  in  the  wall 
of  the  passage,  he  disappeared.  Tyrrell  let  out 
a  quaking  groan. 

"  Trip  his  heels,  trip  his  heels,  O,  devil  my 
master !  "  he  sighed  between  his  teeth. 


134         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

The  shadow  went  up  the  stairs,  paused  at 
a  certain  door,  fitted  a  key  into  its  lock  with 
stealthy  caution,  listened,  and  glided  into  the 
room  beyond.  It  was  small,  and  fast  locked  in 
stone  ten  feet  in  thickness.  There  were  windows 
front  and  back.  Through  the  former  a  cresset 
burning  on  St.  Thomas's  Tower  across  the  ward 
cast  a  red  flicker  upon  a  couple  of  pallets  stand- 
ing near  side  by  side  against  the  wall.  A  sound 
of  unconscious  breathing  came  from  these.  The 
evil  shadow  crept  on  and  stooped. 

Blood  on  the  young  white  face  !  Fool  !  it  was 
the  painting  of  the  cresset.  This  deed  might 
seem  a  pitiful  thing  were  it  not  for  the  hunger 
that  seemed  a  pitifuller.  To  be  abbot — to  be 
bishop — to  be  cardinal  even  !  Who  knew  ?  He 
glanced  down.  His  own  inky  cassock  was 
smeared  with  the  scarlet  fire.  To  wade  through 
blood  to  the  Sacred  College  !  Why  not  ?  The 
end  expiated  all  means  thereto.  There  were  a 
score  of  precedents  to  justify  him.  The  Abbacy 
once  gained,  his  power  for  good  would  be 
multiplied  a  hundredfold.  He  raised  his  eyes. 
The  red  glare  seemed  to  fill  them  from  within. 
Something  in  his  interposing  shadow  appeared 
to  make  the  younger  child  behind  him  uneasy. 


THE   CHAPLAIN   OF   THE   TOWER     135 

He  stirred  and  moaned  in  his  sleep.  Presently 
he  murmured,  with  a  whimper : 

"  Take   it  away,  mother  !  " 

He  was  always  her  Saxon  darling,  with  the 
head  of  gold.  She  used  to  call  his  eyes  like 
cockles  in  the  corn.  The  shadow  stole  apart, 
and,  with  a  sigh,  he  breathed  warm  again. 

To  be  abbot  !  What  surer  justification  of 
his  right  than  to  dispatch  these  innocent 
souls  to  God?  They  would  thank  him  in  the 
end  for  much  peril  spared  them.  He  hesitated 
no  longer,  but,  leaving  the  door  ajar,  descended 
as  he  had  come. 

The  human  dogs  below  were  straining  in  their 
leashes.  At  a  sign  Tyrrell  motioned  them  to 
their  work.  The  two  stole  up,  while  their  master 
remained  to  hold  the  door.  And  then  came  the 
awful  interval. 

The  blood  on  the  white  face  !  The  priest 
blinked  at  the  cresset  flaming  high  across  the 
yard.  Surely  it  burned  with  a  lurider  glow? 
It  was  the  wind  fanning  it.  Wind?  there  was 
no  breath  of  wind  in  all  the  dead  night.  What, 
then,  if  not  the  pipe  of  wind  in  passage  or  key- 
hole, was  that  sudden  whine  which  rose  upon; 
the  silence?  With  the  sweat  breaking  out  on 


136         HISTORICAL   VIGNETTES 

his  forehead,  he  seized  a  mattock,  one  of  several 
which  had  been  laid  ready,  and  began  frenziedly 
striking  at  the  ground  under  the  wall.  Tyrrell, 
with  a  gasping  oath,  came  hurrying  to  join  him. 

They  dug  like  madmen,  against  their  own 
terror  and  the  vision  to  come.  And  when  at 
last  it  announced  itself  with  heave,  and  shuffle, 
and  the  grunting  of  brute  lungs,  they  would 
not  pause  for  a  moment,  but,  reinforced,  wrought 
and  wrought  until  the  grave  was  made,  and 
closed  in,  and  their  sin  covered.  And  then 
Tyrrell,  summoning  his  vile  grooms,  delivered  up 
his  trust  and  rode  away  for  York,  with  his  soul 
rattling  like  a  dried  kernel  within  him. 

The  chaplain  thought  of  a  prayer  for  the  dead, 
and  bending,  with  an  abject  face,  to  kneel  by 
the  grave,  saw  dark  stains  on  his  sandalled  feet. 
He  glanced  at  the  burning  cresset,  stooped  and, 
touching  them,  looked  at  his  ringers.  To  wade 
through  blood  !  With  a  shudder  he  thrust  his 
hands  out  of  sight  into  the  wide  sleeves  of  his 
cassock,  and  went  hurriedly  away,  drifting  across 
the  open  ward  like  the  black  shadow  of  a  cloud. 

But  the  morning  found  him  restored  and  un- 
repentant . 

Abbot   of   St.   Peter's  !      Day   by  day,   while 


THE   CHAPLAIN  OF  THE   TOWER    137 

that  preferment  was  delayed,,  the  hunger  ravened 
in  him  and  the  conscience  hardened,  until  his 
crime,  going  unrewarded,  filled  him  with  an  in- 
sane and  rageful  joy.  But  one  evening  there 
came  a  secret  message  to  him  that  the  King, 
superstitious  after  the  fashion  of  the  sceptical 
and  world -serving,  had  taken  exception  to  the 
place  of  burial,  and  desired  that  the  dead  should 
be  privately  exhumed  and  reinterred  in  a  place 
less  unconsecrate.  Flushed  with  renewed  hope, 
then,  he  hugged  his  confidence,  and  went  with 
burning  eyes  about  his  task. 

God  knows  how  he  managed  to  perform  it, 
and  alone,  and  without  exciting  suspicion.  He 
was  lord  of  his  own  sacred  domain.  But,  work- 
ing with  demoniac  energy,  hie  got  out  the  spoiled 
young  bodies,  and  conveyed  them  one  by  one 
to  the  new  grave  he  had  himself  opened  for 
them  under  the  chapel  stairs .  There  they  might 
repose  within  sound  of  the  Mass,  at  peace  and 
at  rest  for  evermore.  His  imagination,  as  with 
monomaniacs,  could  flow  only  in  one  direction. 
Each  day  he  trod  upon  the  stones  that  hid  his 
secret,  and  never  faltered  or  feared.  And  each 
day  he  waited,  hungering,  for  his  summons  to 
Westminster. 


138         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

It  came  at  last — the  prize  for  which  he  had 
wrought,  and  suffered,  and  bartered  his  priestly 
soul.  He  was  in  the  chapel  at  the  time,  and 
he  heard  the  voice  of  the  Lieutenant  calling  to 
him.  He  hurried  out,  and  saw  Sir  John  standing, 
citation  in  hand,  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs. 

"  Hail,  Father  Abbot  !  "  quoth  the  knight,  in 
that  derisory  tone  he  had  ever  assumed  towards 
him  since  their  last  interview. 

The  chaplain,  his  thin  lips  chewing  out  a 
smile,  lingered  on  the  top  of  the  flight.  And 
then,  all  in  a  moment,  his  eyes  were  seen  to 
fix  themselves  in  a  stare  of  horror,  as  if  some 
terrific  vision  opposed  them. 

"What's  this?"  he  whispered.  "Who  put 
it  here?" 

The  other  answered,  startled  :  "  I  see  naught." 

"  Ah-ha  !  " 

He  threw  up  his  hands  with  a  screech  and 
fell  headlong.  His  neck,  as  he  pitched,  doubled 
under  him  with  a  crack,  and  the  body,  bowling 
down,  was  flung  at  Sir  John's  feet.  There,  with 
its  head  fallen  back  upon  the  very  stone  which 
locked  away  its  secret,  it  relaxed  and  settled. 

He  had  received  the  wages  and  paid  the  price 
of  blood  in  one  and  the  same  instant. 


THE   CHAPLAIN  OF  THE   TOWER    139 

So  died  that  chaplain  of  the  Tower  who  alone, 
out  of  all  the  kingdom,  could  have  solved  the 
mystery  of  the  tragic  dead.  -When,  on  the 
accession  of  Henry,  it  became  necessary,  for 
reasons  of  high  policy,  to  disinter  the  bodies, 
the  grave  under  the  wall  was  found  to  have 
been  violated — only  rumour  could  whisper  by 
whom .  One  of  the  actual  murderers  was  dead ; 
the  other,  together  with  the  late  Master  of  the 
Horse,  being  seized  and  questioned,  could  throw 
no  light  upon  the  matter.  Not  until  two  hundred 
years  had  passed  was  the  secret  to  be  unearthed 
by  some  masons  engaged  in  repairing  the  chapel 
stairs . 

And  the  priest?  There  was  a  legend  once 
current  of  an  odd  little  detail  connected  with 
his  end.  And  that  was  that  the  body,  when 
.picked  up,  exhibited  no  marks  of  injury  about 
the  head  and  neck,  only  the  feet  were  bloody. 
It  might  well  have  been,  seeing  whereon  they 
had  trodden  those  many  days  past. 


LADY    GODIVA 

"  WILL  you  not,  Leofric?  " 

11  Hence  I     You  weary  me." 

"  Dear  lord?" 

"  Dear  lady.  So  you  plead  like  a  child,  the 
gold  circlet  in  thy  hair,  the  gold  hem  at  thy 
robe,  the  gold  garters  about  thy  knees.  Remis- 
sion of  these  dues,  quotha  !  Are  gems  got  with 
forbearance?  Go  to!  you  talk.  Wouldst 
sacrifice  one  garnet  in  thy  brooch  to  ease  these 
churls  of  mine?  " 

"  O,  yes  1   and  more." 

"  More,  more  1  What  more  ?  The  garnets 
of  thy  lips,  perchance,  thine  eyes'  amethysts, 
the  whole  treasury  of  thy  love?  " 

"  Nay,  for  that  is  my  dear  lord's." 

"What  so?    You  are  considerate." 

"  Leofric,  they  come  crying  at  my  stirrup  : 
'  While  you  lie  soft,  O  lady,  we  cannot  sleep  for 
cold ;  while  you  toy  with  profusion,  our 


142         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

children  moan  for  bread.  We  toil  to  keep,  not 
pay,  a  tithe  of  what  we  earn.  We  may  not  eat 
the  swine  we  rear,  the  eels  we  net.  The  taxes 
crush  us  ;  pray  you  our  good  lord  to  lift  the 
heavy  burden.  Our  lives  are  his.'  ' 

"  Do  they  say  so  ?  They  shall  answer  for  it 
for  thus  importuning  you." 

"  God  forbid  !  Leofric,  hear  me  !  For  the 
love  of  God,  Leofric." 

"  Away  !  " 

"  Of  the  sweet  Virgin " 

"  Will  you  tempt  me  too  much  !  " 

"  For  thy  love  of  poor  Godiva." 

The  Earl  turned  with  a  roar. 

"  My  love  1  What  of  thine,  so  to  scheme  to 
rob  me?  " 

"  O,  not  rob,  but  give.  I  would  have  them 
love  thee  as  I  love." 

"  By  robbing  me.  That  is  a  one-sided  com- 
pact. I  see  naught  but  my  own  loss  in  it." 

"  Alas  !      I   would  give  my  all." 

"  A  vain  boast.     What  is  thine  to  give?  ' 

She  sighed. 

"  My  love,  perhaps?  "  he  said,  mocking. 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  What  is  thy  dearest  possession?  "  he  asked, 


LADY    GODIVA  143 

still     bantering'.      "  Most     women     count  their 
modesty.     Wouldst  thou  give  that?  " 

She  said,  weeping,  "  I  would  trust  in  Mary." 

He  stamped   down   his  foot. 

'  Trust,  then  !  Strip  off  thy  robe,  ride  naked 
through  the  town — so  then  I  will  believe  thee." 

She  looked  up  at  him  amazed.  The  colour 
flushed  and  waned  in  her  round  cheek,  leaving!  it 
a  lily  white. 

"  But  will  you  give  me  leave  to  do  so?  "  she 
whispered. 

"  Aye,"  he  said,  breathing  scorn. 

"  And,  being  done,  remit  the  tolls  and  set  thy 
people  free?.  " 

"  On  my  knightly  oath,"  he  swore,  and,  in 
a  sudden  tickle  of  humour,  chucked  her  soft 
chin,  and  went  off  between  anger  and  hard 
laughter. 

She  was  of  the  stock  of  Thorold,  this  young] 
wife,  sheriffs  of  Lincolnshire  and  a  devout  and 
noble  family.  It  had  been  like  garlanding  of 
a  bull  with  flowers,  this  wedding!  of  her  sweet 
gentleness  with  the  stormy  Saxon  earl.  Yet  from 
the  first  she  had  had  influence  with  him.  He 
bore  her  humorously,  one  moment  reverencing 
her,  the  next  loving  to  bring  the  shameful  scarlet 


144         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

to  her  cheek,  and  then  to  crush  her  about  with 
his  arms  in  mighty  protection  and  ownership. 
She  had  a  soft  white  beauty  like  a  rose,  and  it 
was  good  thus  to  hold  her  full  fragrance 
against  his  breast. 

Now,  trembling  a  little  and  her  eyes  cast  down, 
she  sought  Father  Thomas,  the  chaplain  of  the 
house,  and  told  him  all.  Was  she  justified  in 
the  venture?  she  asked  him,  her  voice  scarcely 
audible. 

The  man  was  young  and  erotic,  under  his  habit 
a  sickly  craver  of  emotions.  He  would  often 
in  his  inmost  soul  gloat  upon  a  dream,  a  thought 
—wild  and  scarce  conceivable  ;  yet  the  authority 
of  his  cloth  was  potent.  It  was  a  swooning 
experience  to  him  to  be  near  her  day  by  day,  to 
feel  the  leaning  of  her  soul  towards  his,  to  handle 
the  soft  places  of  her  conscience.  Accepting 
what  was  regard  for  his  office  as  regard  for  the 
priest,  he  would  whisper  to  himself :  "  Even 
greater  miracles  have  come  to  pass."  Wherefore 
now,  moistening  his  dry  lips  and  thinking  of  her 
loveliness,  he  answered  her  with  the  Greek  pro- 
verb :  "A  little  evil  is  a  great  good.  You  are 
justified,  my  daughter." 

She  turned  and  fled  from  him  with  a  strangled 


LADY    GODIVA  145 

cry.  Perhaps  she  had  hoped  against  hope  to 
find  her  venture  banned  by  Mother  Church  ;  per- 
haps, unrecognised  by  herself,  the  pure  spirit  in 
her  had  recoiled  from  contact  with  a  thing 
unclean.  Yet  he  was  God's  servant,  and  he 
had  spoken. 

For  days  after,  awaiting"  the  ordeal,  she  walked 
as  in  a  nightmare,  a  rose  of  fever  in  her  cheek. 
She  named  the  hour  of  her  trial,  and  sent  her 
herald  forth  to  cry  it,  and  to  pray  all  human 
creatures  of  their  love  to  spare  her  shame,  since 
she  was  consecrating  her  womanhood  to  their 
salvation,  and  offering  herself  for  their  sakes  to 
be  exposed  on  this  pillory.  And  a  sound  like  a 
wind  went  throughout  the  town,  and  each  soul 
there,  from  thrall  to  freedman,  kindled  like  dull 
fire  blown  upon,  and  dropped  upon  his  knees  to 
call  the  bitter  curse  of  Heaven  on  him  that  should 
prove  a  traitor  to  such  trust.  And  Godiva  heard 
and  sighed  ;  yet  she  could  not  escape  that  sense 
of  soilure  in  her,  since  to  a  spotless  soul  it  is 
defilement  enough  to  be  outraged  in  a  dreamer's 
thought.  "  O,  Mother  Mary,  ward  and  hide 
me  1  "  she  prayed  perpetually. 

Her  lord  learned  the  truth  amazed.  She  was 
resolved,  then,  after  all?.  She  would  take  him  at 

10 


146         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

his  word  to  browbeat  and  defy  him?  Yet  he 
would  not  interfere,  nor  move  one  step  to  control 
her.  But  ever  in  his  frowning  eyes  was  a  shadow 
like  death,  and  on  his  lips  a  muttered  curse  : 
"  Will  she  do  it?  Will  she  do  it?  A  wanton- 
no  wife  of  mine."  And,  thinking  so,  he  let  her 
have  her  way,  even  to  the  brief  command  of 
all  his  house  and  borough. 

Now,  on  that  day  of  sacrifice,  by  noon  all 
Coventry  was  like  a  city  of  the  dead.  The  last 
step  had  echoed  from  its  streets  ;  the  voice  of 
lean  barter  was  hushed  ;  behind  veiled  windows 
a  thousand  ears  were  strained  in  thrill  and  ecstasy 
to  hear  the  tinkle  of  a  palfry's  feet  upon  the 
stones  without.  Only  one  sacrilegious  hound, 
doomed  to  eternal  infamy,  could  be  found  to 
slur  the  honest  record — a  small,  livid-faced  man, 
slinking  like  a  fearful  thief,  his  cowl  pulled  over 
his  eyes,  up  the  steps  of  the  By  ward  tower  by  the 
castle  gate.  Father  Thomas  it  was,  who  had 
left  Godiva  in  the  chapel  prostrate  before  the 
figure  of  the  Virgin,  praying  for  strength  to  do 
her  part.  It  was  only  right,  he  told  himself, 
licking  his  pale  lips,  that  the  Church  should 
sanction  this  live-offering  by  its  presence. 

The  Castle  had  fallen  as  silent  as  the  town. 


LADY    GODIVA  147 

Its  inmates  whispered  apart,  or  wept  if  they  were 
women.  Its  great  gate  was  flung  open,  its  battle- 
ments were  deserted,  its  windows  stopped  and 
eyeless  ;  only  in  the  courtyard  a  single  creamy 
jennet,  fastened  to  a  pillar,  champed  and  fretted 
for  her  rider. 

The  frowning  Leofric,  his  ear  bent  to  a  curtain 
close  at  hand,  fingered  his  sword-hilt  as  he 
waited  listening).  His  fair  Saxon  face,  clean- 
shaved  but  for  the  corn-coloured  beard  which 
forked  from  its  chin  like  a  swallow's  tail,  was 
flushed  a  deep  red  ;  the  muscles  of  his  bare  arms 
and  thighs,  white  against  his  purple  gold-hemmed 
tunic,  twitched  spasmodically ;  the  leggings  of 
twisted  gold  upon  his  calves  seemed  to  undulate 
like  snake -skin. 

"  She  shall  die  first  !  "  he  kept  muttering  to 
himself.  "  She  shall  die  first  !  " 

A  soft  step  whispered  on  the  stones ;  he 
heard  the  mare  whinny,  her  trappings  clinked. 
"  Now  1  "  he  muttered,  and,  drawing  his  blade, 
parted  the  curtain  noiselessly  and  looked  forth. 
In  the  very  act  he  staggered  and  flung  his  hand 
across  his  face. 

His  wife — no  question  of  it  !  But  so  ethereal- 
ised,  so  remote  from  his  carnal  conception  of 


148         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

her,  that  his  soul  shrank  abashed  before  the  spirit 
his  ruthless  challenge  had  evoked.  Her  hair 
was  down,  veiling  her  from  crown  to  pearly  thigh. 
A  nimbus,  painted  by  the  sunlight  in  its  gos- 
samer, seemed  to  hang  about  her  head.  Through 
golden  mist  budded  a  rose  of  lips,  a  thought 
of  blue  eyes  flowered,  like  little  eyes  of  heaven 
seen  through  a  haze  of  dawn.  So  glorified  in 
her  sacrifice,  seen,  but  unseeing,  she  went  by  him 
and  disappeared,  silent  as  a  figure  in  a  glass. 
He  stood  like  one  turned  suddenly  to  stone. 

Eull  ten  minutes  must  have  passed  before, 
coming  again  to  consciousness,  as  it  were,  he 
bethought  himself  that  she  would  be  returning  in 
a  little,  her  task  accomplished. 

"  Introibo  ad  altare  Marice! "  he  sighed, 
amazed.  "  I  will  pray  my  love's  forgiveness. 
I  am  not  worthy  to  kiss  her  little  latchet." 

He  clanked  his  sword  into  its  scabbard,  and, 
going  like  a  blind  man,  sought  the  chapel.  The 
lamp  before  the  altar  shone  like  a  star  ;  all  the 
dusk  air  seemed  thick  with  scent  of  roses  ;  and 
before  the  shrine  of  the  Virgin  lay  his  wife  pros- 
trate on  the  stones. 

He  stood  a  moment  as  if  death-smitten  ;  the 
blood  about  his  heart  seemed  to  stagnate  and 


LADY    GODIVA  149 

leave  him  grey  as  ashes.  Then  fury  was  born 
in  him,  and  flamed  to  fire. 

"  A  trick  1  "  he  stormed  within.  "  She  hath 
bribed  another  to  take  her  place." 

;He  strode  roughly  forward,  bent,  and  seized 
the  body  to  his  arms.  She  never  moved  or 
spoke.  Looking  in  her  face,  he  saw  its  eyes 
closed,  its  cheek  stone-white.  No  breath  came 
from  the  parted  lips. 

"  Dead  1  "  he  whispered.  "  My  God  !  have 
I  killed  her?,  " 

Raising  his  eyes  in  anguish,  he  saw  the  shrine 
empty.  The  painted  figure  of  the  Virgin  proper 
to  it  was  gone.  At  that  moment  a  sound  of 
horse's  hoofs  striking  upon  the  stones  outside 
came  to  his  ear.  She  was  returning  !  She — 
who?  An  awe  as  of  immortality  smote  into  his 
veins.  The  body  in  his  arms  stirred,  and  a  deep 
sigh  issued  from  its  lips. 

"  Mother  so  dear,  Mother  without  stain,  pro- 
tect and  cover  me  thy  child  with  the  mantle  of 
thy  chastity.  I  am  ready,  Mother." 

Her  fingers  trembled  to  her  belt.  L'eofric, 
with  a  gasp  of  emotion,  caught  and  held  them. 
"  Mother?.  "  he  choked,  and,  looking  up,  saw 
the  figure  in  its  place  once  more. 


150         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

There  was  a  distant  cry  of  jubilance,  swell- 
ing to  a  roar,  and  then  near  at  hand  another,  on 
a  new  and  startled  note.  Something  had  befallen 
in  the  castle — something  as  unexpected  as  it  was 
very  fearful  in  its  revelation.  In  a  chamber  of 
the  Byward  tower  they  had  come  upon  the  body 
of  the  priest.  There  was  an  augur  in  its  crooked 
clutch,  and  in  the  boarded  shutter  of  the  window 
a  hole  to  correspond.  The  body  lay  decently, 
and  undefiled  of  blood,  but  where  the  eyes  should 
have  been  were  two  burnt  and  blackened  sockets. 

A  judgment,  said  the  people  ;  but  only  Leofric 
and  Godiva  ever  knew  of  what  tremendous 
import.  Divine  is  beauty,  and  those  who  would 
view  it  unveiled  must  risk  Actseon's  fate. 


THE    HERO    OF    WATERLOO 

COLONEL  MANTON  put  up  his  rod  and  demanded 
to  be  set  ashore.  It  had  been  his  first  experi- 
ence of  coarse  fishing;  on  the  river,  and  it  had 
not  proved  to  his  taste.  It  was  not  that  the 
perch  had  been  distant  or  the  chub  unapproach- 
able. On  the  contrary,  the  place  having  been 
ground -baited  overnight,  the  sport  had  been 
excellent.  It  was  the  worms  and  one  other  thing 
which  decided  him.  He  had  been  present  at 
Talavera,  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  at  Badajos,  at  Vit- 
toria,  at  Quatre  Bras,  at  Waterloo  ;  he  had  seen 
as  much  carnage  as  most  men,  but  this  blood- 
less impaling  of  lob -worms  on  hooks,  and  then 
casting  them,  so  transfixed,  to  lie  writhing  on 
the  river  bottom  for  an  indefinite  period  at  the 
end  of  a  ledger-line,  offended  his  sense  of  fitness. 
It  was  not,  it  seemed  to  him,  playing  the  game. 
The  worms  had  no  chance,  and  they  could  not 
bite  back.  He  hated  to  sit  there  and  think  of 

151 


152         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

what  was  going  on  under  the  quiet  water,  and 
the  reflection  gained  nothing  in  relish  from  the 
fact  that,  by  refusing  to  soil  his  own  hands  with 
the  viscous  contortions  of  the  creatures,  he  must 
appear,  in  delegating  that  operation  to  the  boat- 
man, to  torture  by  deputy,  like  the  most  cowardly 
of  Eastern  despots.  And  so  when,  as  presently 
happened,  this  same  stolid  deputy,  in  "  disgorg- 
ing "  an  obstinate  hook  from  a  barbel's  throat 

tore  away But  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the 

Colonel  put  down  his  rod  and  demanded  there 
and  then  to  be  set  ashore. 

There  was  no  gainsaying  him,  of  course.  It 
was  sufficient  that  he  was  the  guest  of  a  distin- 
guished General  living  at  Datchet ;  but  in  addi- 
tion to  this  the  Colonel's  personal  actions  invited 
no  criticism.  He  fished — as  he  walked,  as  he 
rode,  as  he  appeared  on  all  secular  occasions— 
in  a  dark  blue  wasp-waisted  frock-coat  with  frogs, 
in  tight  nankeen  trousers  strapped  under  neat 
insteps,  in  a  stiff  collar  and  full  black  stock,  in 
a  tall  hat  with  a  brim  so  crescented  that  its  front 
peak  looked  like  the  "  nasal  "  of  a  Norman 
helmet.  And  for  the  rest  he  carried  himself 
and  his  white  moustache  with  the  conscious 
authority  of  a  cock  of  a  hundred  fights. 


THE    HERO    OF    WATERLOO        153 

The  boatman  put  him  ashore  on  the  river -bank 
some  half-mile  below  Datchet,  towards  which 
village  he  immediately  addressed  his  steps.  The 
path  was  lonely  and  unfrequented,  and  it  gave 
the  Colonel  some  surprise  to  observe,  as  he 
turned  a  clump  of  bushes,  a  fashionable  old 
beau  toddling  along  it  in  front  of  him.  In  a  few 
moments  the  latter  paused,  nonplussed,  at  a  stile, 
and  the  Colonel  came  up  with  him. 

The  pedestrian  was  a  man  of  uncouth  bulk 
but  distinguished  mien.  He  wore  a  black  frock- 
coat  of  a  somewhat  military  cut,  with  a  rich 
fur  collar.  Curly  auburn  locks,  obviously 
artificial,  showed  beneath  the  brim  of  his  glossy 
hat,  and  accented  somewhat  ghastfully  the  puffy 
pallor  of  a  face  whose  texture  betrayed  its  age. 
His  eyes  had  a  glutinous,  half -blind  appearance  ; 
his  loose  lower  lip  perpetually  trembled.  He 
peered  at  the  newcomer,  panting  a  good  deal, 
as  if  the  sudden  apparition  had  shaken  his 
nerves. 

"  If  I  may  venture,  sir,"  said  Colonel  Manton, 
and  proffered  his  arm.  The  other  accepted  it 
to  mount  the  stile.  It  was  an  ungraceful 
business,  and,  once  over,  he  stood,  with  his  hands 
to  his  sides,  vibrating  heavily,  like  a  worn-out 


154         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

engine,  to  his  own  respirations.  Presently  he  was 
sufficiently  recovered  to  speak. 

"  A  damned  obstruction — a  damned  obstruc- 
tion !  Cannot  I  leave  my  carriage  a  moment 
to  walk  round  by  the  water  but  this  annoyance 
must  appear  in  my  path  I  " 

"  A  villainous  stile/'  said  the  Colonel.  '  We 
will  indict  it  for  a  trespass." 

He  was  a  reasonable  man,  and  he  felt  the 
absurdity  of  the  complaint.  But,  to  his  surprise, 
his  sarcasm  missed  fire. 

"  Do  so,  do  so,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  and 
took  his  arm  again,  as  it  might  have  been  his 
own  walking-stick.  They  went  on  together, 
and  in  a  little  the  stranger  had  opened  a 
conversation  with  all  the  effrontery  in  the 
world. 

"  My  boy,  what's  your  rank?  "  said  he.  'I 
perceive  you  are  a  soldier." 

The  officer  stared,  and  drew  himself  up. 

11  Colonel  Manton,  sir,  at  your  service,"  he 
answered  distantly. 

He  was  surprised ;  but  the  man  was  old,  near 
seventy  by  his  appearance,  and  very  possibly 
from  his  cut  a  retired  veteran  like  himself. 
Familiarity  from  a  general,  say,  would  be  par- 


THE    HERO    OF    WATERLOO        155 

donable,  and  even  kindly.  Besides,  he  did  not 
dislike  the  implied  suggestion  of  juniority. 

"  -Hey  !  "  said  the  stranger—"  retired?  " 

'  Yes  sir,  retired." 

"  Brevet   rank?  " 

"  Brevet  be  damned  !  "  said  Colonel  Manton 
hotly.  "  I  owe  my  promotion,  sir,  if  you  wish 
to  know,  to  Waterloo." 

The  stranger  glanced  at  him  with  a  curiously 
sly  look,  and  pinched  the  arm  on  wMch  his  own 
fingers  rested. 

"  What  !  "  he  said,   "  were  you  there?  " 

"  I  had  the  honour,  sir,"  said  the  Colonel 
grandiloquently,  "  of  playing  my  little  part  in 
that  Homeric  contest." 

"  Whose  division,   hey?  " 

"  Picton's— Pack's  brigade.  You  are  a  little 
— you  will  excuse  my  saying  it — particular." 

"  Certainly  I  will,  my  boy.  Wounded — 
hey?  " 

A  distinct  flush  suffused  the  Colonel's  cheek. 

"  Wounded — yes,"  he  replied  shortly. 

The  old  fellow  nudged  him  confidentially. 

"  Tell  me,"  he  said—"  how?  " 

"  Look  here — you  must  forgive  me,  you 
know,"  exploded  the  Colonel ;  "  but  I  must  point 


156 

out  that  we  are  strangers.  Still — as  a  fellow- 
campaigner — if  that  is  the  case — may  I  ask,  sir, 
if  you,  were  at  Waterloo?  " 

The  other  laughed  enjoyingly. 

"  Was  I?  "  he  said.  "  To  be  sure  I  was. 
You  had  all  good  reason  for  knowing  it." 

Colonel  Manton's  eyes  opened.  Here  was  a 
momentous  implication.  Evidently  he  had  to 
do  with  some  great  general  of  division,  though 
the  boast  sounded  a  little  extravagant  and  un- 
military.  He  ran  over  in  his  mind  a  dozen 
possible  names,  but  without  success.  And  then 
the  thought  occurred  to  him  :  "  Good  reason  for 
knowing  it?  What  the  devil  !  Is  it  possible  he 
was  on  the  other  side?  ' 

The  idea  seemed  too  preposterous  for  belief  ; 
the  stranger  was  so  obviously  British.  Who,  in 
wonder's  name,  could  he  be,  then?  Hill, 
Macdonnell,  Saltoun,  Uxbridge,  Vandeleur, 
Somersett,  Hackett— all  divisional  or  brigadier- 
generals?  He  could  not  identify  him,  of  his 
knowledge,  with  any  one  of  these.  The  Iron 
Duke  himself?  He  had  never  been  brought  into 
very  close  personal  contact  with  the  great  man, 
but  naturally  he  was  familiar  with  his  features. 
Could  it  be  possible  that  time  had  so  fused  and 


THE    HERO    OF    WATERLOO        157 

blunted  those  that  their  characteristic  contour  had 
degenerated  into  this  scarce  distinguishable  pulp? 
Prosperity,  he  knew,  could  play  strange  tricks 
with  countenances,  yet  a  volte-face  so  revolu- 
tionary seemed  incredible.  And  yet  who  else 
but  the  Duke  had  been  on  that  day  as  indis- 
pensable as  implied?  But  it  was  conceivable 
that  some  might  have  so  regarded  themselves — 
that  certain  heads  might  have  been  turned  by 
their  share  in  the  success  of  so  stupendous  a 
victory. 

Colonel  Manton  had  been  living;  abroad  on 
his  half -pay  for  some  years,  and,  until  the  occa- 
sion of  this  visit  during  the  summer  of  1830, 
had  dwelt  for  long  a  stranger  to  his  native  land. 
He  could  but  suppose  that  he  had  in  a  measure 
lost  the  clue,  through  subsequent  develop- 
ments, to  old  events.  It  remained  clear  only 
that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  one  who  had,  or 
believed  himself  to  have,  contributed  signally  to 
the  success  of  the  epoch-making  battle.  And  that 
must  be  enough  for  him.  He  spoke  thenceforth 
as  a  subordinate  to  his  commanding  officer. 

"  I  beg  your  indulgence,  sir,"  he  said.  "  I 
have  been  absent  from  my  country  for  a  con- 
siderable time,  and  features  once  familiar  elude 


158         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

me.  You  asked  about  my  wound.  It  is  a 
ridiculous  matter,  and  I  recall  it  without  en- 
thusiasm. The  fact  is  that,  when  d'Erlon's  guns 
were  pounding  us  before  the  advance,  a  ball 
smashed  the  head  of  a  sergeant  standing  near 
me,  and  one  of  the  fellow's  cursed  double-teeth 
was  driven  into  my  neck.  It  was  not  enough 
to  cripple  my  fighting -power,  but  I  would  have 
given  a  dozen  of  my  own  to  boast  a  more  honour- 
able scar." 

The  stranger  chuckled. 

"  Scars  are  not  the  only  guarantee  of  valour," 
he  said. 

The  Colonel  ventured  :  "  You  brought  away 
some  of  your  own,  sir?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  old  fellow.  "  No  ;  Wellington 
and  I  got  off  scot-free." 

The  Colonel  dared  again  :  '  Were  you,  may 
I  ask,  on  his  personal  staff?  ' 

"  Well,  yes,"  said  the  stranger,  chuckling  still 
more,  "  I  suppose  you  might  call  it  that." 

Suppose?  Colonel  Manton  gaped.  It  was 
positively  a  matter  of  history  that  not  one  of  that 
staff  had  escaped  death  or  mutilation.  The  other 
may  have  noticed  his  perplexity,  for  he  turned 
on  him  with  an  air  of  sudden  annoyance. 


THE    HERO    OF    WATERLOO        159 

"  You  haven't  the  assurance  to  question  my 
word,  I  hope,  sir?  "  he  demanded. 

"  Certainly  not,"  answered  the  Colonel. 

"  I  could  give  you  convincing  proof,"  said 
the  stranger.  "  Did  the  Commander -in-Chief — 
now  did  he  or  did  he  not — visit  General  Bliicher 
at  Wavre  the  night  before  the  battle  to  make 
sure  of  his  co-operation?  ' 

"  It  is  a  disputed  point,  sir,"  said  the  Colonel. 
I  believe  that  even  his  Grace  has  been  known 
to  contradict  himself  in  the  matter,  saying  at  one 
time  that  he  would  never  have  fought  without 
Bliicher's  explicit  promise  to  back  him  up,  at 
another  flatly  contradicting  the  report  that  he 
saw  the  Prussian  general  on  the  night  before  the 
battle." 

"  And  he  did  not,  my  boy,"  sniggered  the 
old  fellow  triumphantly,  "  for  his  interview  with 
him  was  after  midnight,  and  therefore  on  the 
day  of  the  battle.  I  ought  to  know,  for  I  sent 
him  off  there  ntyself." 

He  cackled  into  such  a  spasm  of  laughter  that 
the  convulsion  caught  his  wind. 

"  O,  my  chest  !  "  he  wheezed  and  gasped, 
"  my  miserable  chest  I  I'm  the  most  wretched 
creature  on  earth.  But  it's  nothing,  nothing — 


160         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

the  youngest  fellows  are  subject  to  it."  He 
coughed  and  wiped  his  eyes  with  a  heavily- 
scented  handkerchief.  "  Yes,"  he  said  presently, 
"  yes,  Wellington  was  a  sound  workaday  general, 
a  fine  soldier,  an  inspired  commissary,  but,  of 
genius — h'm  I  We  need  only  suggest,  Manty  my 
boy,  that  he  was  well  advised.  The  man  at 
his  elbow,  hey?  You  need  not  mention  it,  you 
know,  but  the  real  hero  of  Waterloo — hey,  d'ye 
see?  Keep  it  to  yourself ;  there  were  reasons 
against  its  being  divulged — you  understand? 
What,  my  boy  !  " 

The  Colonel  stared  before  him  as  if  hypno- 
tised ;  he  stumbled  in  his  walk.  Was  it  possible 
to  mistake  the  implication — that  the  laurels  ought 
by  rights  to  have  adorned  the  brow  of  this 
stranger  beside  him?  He  felt  like  one  whose 
faith  had  suddenly  exploded  of  its  own  intensity, 
leaving  his  breast  a  blackened  shell.  Could  there 
actually  have  been  another,  of  whom  he  had 
never  heard,  at  the  Duke's  right  hand  on  that 
tremendous  day,  the  presiding  but  unconfessed 
genius  of  it?  He  had  heard  speak  of  the  Cor- 
sican's  little  red  familiar.  Was  his  great  rival, 
were  possibly  all  commanding  intellects,  so 
supernaturally  provided? 


THE    HERO    OF    WATERLOO     161 

He  was  really  a  simple  man,  with  a  mind 
ruled  to  certain  prescriptive  lines  of  conduct. 
He  glanced  askance  at  his  companion,  who  was 
smiling  and  murmuring  to  himself.  Who  in 
Heaven's  name  could  he  be,  and  why  had  he 
selected  him  for  his  astounding:  confidences?  For 
all  his  own  fearless  rectitude,  an  uncanny  feeling 
began  to  possess  him.  He  was  glad,  in  turning 
a  corner,  to  see  the  end  of  the  path,  and  the  head 
of  a  waiting  coachman  showing  above  the  hedge. 
And  the  next  moment  they  had  emerged  on  to  the 
village  green. 

A  barouche  stood  there,  with  a  bareheaded 
gentleman  standing  at  its  door.  The  liveries  of 
the  servants  were  scarlet,  and  a  mounted  man 
in  a  scarlet  embroidered  coat  waited  a  little  apart. 
The  gentleman  came  forward. 

'  Will  your  Majesty  be  pleased  to  ascend?  ' 
he  asked. 

The  King  dropped  the  Colonel's  arm,  and 
appeared  on  the  instant  to  forget  all  about  him. 

"  Yes,  Watty ;  yes,  certainly,  my  boy,"  he 
said.  "Is  that  the  fiery  chariot?  " 


11 


MAID    MARIAN 

"  MASTER  KAY,  are  you  my  friend?  " 

;'  Hear  me  vow  it,  madam." 

"  Alas  !    what  vow  ?  " 

"  That  I  am  your  friend." 

"  Can  you  so  perjure  yourself?  Are  you  not 
the  King's  friend?  " 

"  O,  yes,  indeed  1  " 

"  How  can  you  be  his  friend  and  mine?  " 

"  Why,  as  the  bee's  the  flower's  friend.  I 
carry  messages  of  love." 

"  Does  he  ask  mine  of  me  ?  " 

'  Just  that,  madam — only  your  love,  no  more." 

"  No  more?  You  say  well.  Why,  truly  my 
love  were  a  little  thing  to  be  valued  at  no  more 
than  a  man's  base  desire." 

"  The  man  is  the  King,  madam.  His  desire 
is  great  like  himself." 

"  The  King  is  the  man,  sir,  and  the  man  is 
hateful  to  me.  Will  you  tell  him  so,  and  be 
indeed  my  friend?  " 

"  It  would  serve  you  ill,  madam." 

163 


164         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  Will  he  force  me  ?  Alack !  I  will  kill 
myself." 

"  Nay,  that  you  shall  not,  save  you  hold  your 
breath  and  die  of  your  own  sweetness  like  a 
rose.  No  other  way,  be  assured.  He  will  wear 
you  in  his  bosom  first." 

"  God  !  Dear  Master  Kay,  good  Master  Kay, 
sweet,  gentle  friend,  let  me  kill  myself  I  " 

"  I  must  not." 

"  But  to  leap  from  the  wall  I  It  is  a  little 
way — but  a  step,  and  to  save  me  hell?  You 
would  not  have  me  burn  for  ever?" 

"  I  would  have  you  reasonable,  madam." 

She  had  fallen  on  her  knees  to  him,  this  Maud 
Fitzwalter,  fair  daughter  of  Robert  the  Baron, 
who  was  to  come  to  head  the  revolt  against  the 
infamous  King.  Her  long  white  fingers  plucked 
at  his  sleeves ;  her  eyes  sought  his  eyes 
imploringly.  He  drank  of  them,  lusting  in  their 
passionate  appeal.  She  was  called  Madelon  la 
Belle,  and  to  see  her  was  to  think  of  spring, 
with  its  crab -blossoms  against  a  blue  sky,  its 
glow  and  youth  and  waywardness.  There  is  a 
lack  of  the  sense  of  symmetry  in  Love  that 
makes  his  sweetest  faces  out  of  drawing ;  and 
yet  one  never  doubts  but  that  they  are  Love's 


MAID    MARIAN  165 

faces,  as  endearing  as  they  are  faulty,  and  for 
their  very  faultiness  most  lovable.  His  draw- 
ing, I  say,  may  be  defective,  but  he  knows  the 
trick  of  lip  and  eyelash  to  a  curve  and  how  to 
snare  men's  hearts  thereby.  And  so,  while  we 
criticise  his  work,  saying  that  this  or  that  line 
goes  astray,  we  would  not  have  it  turned  by 
a  hair's  breadth  nearer  the  truth,  lest  we  should 
miss  love  in  aiming  at  perfection. 

Such  a  face  was  Maud's,  framed  in  its  yellow 
braids  so  long  that,  parted  from  her  forehead 
and  plaited  in  with  a  cord  of  gold,  they  almost 
touched  the  ground  when  she  stood  up.  For 
the  rest  her  simple  tunic  was  green,  and  clasped 
loosely  at  the  hips  by  a  belt  of  jewelled  gold, 
the  slack  of  which  hung  low.  Madelon  la  Belle 
she  was  called,  or  Passerose,  for  the  sweetness 
of  her  Saxon  face  and  the  Saxon  blue  of  her 
eyes.  But  most  of  all  she  herself  loved  her 
name  of  Maid  Marian,  given  her  in  those  green 
holts  and  brakes  of  Sherwood  whither  she  had 
followed  her  own  true  love,  the  outlawed  Earl, 
and  whence,  in  a  dire  moment,  she  had  been 
ravished  by  the  cursed  King.  *He  had  seen  her 
loveliness  and  coveted  it,  and  where  John  coveted 
was  no  safety  for  wife  or  virgin.  And  so  it 


166         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

had  befallen  that  once,  when  abiding  in  her 
father's  castle  of  Dunmow,  the  Baron  being 
absent,  he  had  come,  shedding  in  his  hot  haste  his 
smooth  phrases  and  courtly  wiles,  and  had  torn 
her  from  her  shelter  and  carried  her  to  London 
to  his  Tower  on  the  Thames.  And  there  he  kept 
her  fast,  not  doubting  but  that  she  would  yield 
to  him  in  time,  and  glooming  ever  a  little  and  a 
little  more  as  her  obduracy  held  him  aloof. 

This  Kay  was  one  of  the  King's  minions,  whom 
he  would  send  to  bribe  or  threaten  the  lovely 
captive  into  surrender.  The  fellow  was  no 
better  than  a  maquereau,  who  tasted  passion 
by  deputy.  He  was  confident,  in  the  soft  per- 
suasiveness of  his  voice,  in  the  irresistibility  of 
his  figure  and  finery,  of  the  ultimate  success  of 
his  mediation.  His  hair,  rolled  about  his  ears, 
was  scented ;  his  tunic,  short  beyond  custom, 
was  of  gold-embroidered  crimson,  and  his  hose 
were  like-hued.  A  curt-manteau,  of  cloth  of 
gold  lined  with  green,  hung  about  his  shoulders, 
and  on  his  feet  were  boots  of  green  cloth,  the 
upper  part  of  lattice-work,  embossed  at  each 
crossing  with  a  little  leopard's  head  in  gold.  He 
had  no  real  heart  of  tenderness  or  mercy.  He 
was  a  mere  painted  mask,  as  bowelless  as  the 
Elf -maiden  herself. 


MAID    MARIAN  167 

"  I  would  have  you  reasonable,  madam/'  he 
said. 

She  rose  and  stood  away  from  him. 

"  Is  it  not  in  reason  to  guard  one's  virtue?  " 
she  said,  panting. 

"  Nay,"  he  answered ;  "  but  if  you  guard  it 
alone  and  weaponless,  and  the  thief  come  in  well- 
armed  and  strong  of  body  ?  It  were  reason  better 
to  yield  it  with  a  good  grace." 

She  threw  herself  upon  a  bench  wailing,  "  O, 
hence,  thou  beast  !  "  And  so  she  lay  writhing* — 
"  Only  to  die — and  they  will  not  let  me  die  !  " 

She  sought  and  cried  for  death  perpetually ; 
she  knew  she  was  lost,  lacking  that  kind  friend. 
Was  it  not  pitiful?  she  whom  life  had  so 
favoured  and  love  so  moulded.  She  sought  him, 
moaning  and  wringing  her  hands,  at  barred 
windows,  in  dusky  corners  ;  she  entreated  her 
gaolers  to  have  pity  on  her,  to  put  poison  into 
her  food,  to  lend  her  a  weapon,  or  a  pathway  to 
the  battlements  whence  she  might  cast  herself 
down.  Her  every  prayer  but  increased  their  watch- 
fulness ;  Death  was  excluded  from  her  as  jealously 
as  if  he  had  been  her  outlawed  lover  himself. 

On  this  day  her  desperation  had  risen  to  a 
pitch  scarce  endurable.  There  had  been  signs 


168         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

that  the  royal  patience  was  near  exhausted. 
'And  it  was  late  spring  without — she  could  see 
it  through  her  window  across  the  green  flats 
that  stretched  beyond  the  moat,  beyond  her 
prison.  Its  sweetness  reminded  her  of  past  days 
in  the  forest,  so  that  her  heart  came  near  to 
breaking.  Her  lips  whispered  the  words  of  the 
little  glad  song  that  she  and  her  Robin  had  often 
sung  together : 

"Summer  is  a  comin'  in, 

Loud  sing  cuckoo. 
Groweth  seed  and  bloweth  mead, 
And  springeth  the  wood  now. 
Sing  cuckoo,  cuckoo." 

"  Sing  cuckoo,"  she  wept,  "  the  wanton's 
shame  !  O,  Robin,  my  Robin  !  "  She  would 
never  see  him  again — could  never  wish  to.  In 
a  few  hours,  perhaps,  she  would  be  a  thing  for 
his  scorn,  a  thing  that  not  death,  found  too  late, 
could  cleanse. 

In  the  evening  came  the  King  himself,  with 
his  frowning  eyes  and  grim  jaw  that,  with  the 
thick  beard  clipped  close  on  it,  looked  like  a 
bulldog's .  He  was  in  a  furious  mood,  his  Queen 
having  vexed  him,  and  flashed  and  scintillated 
like  a  scaled  devil  in  the  light  of  the  dozen 
torches  he  brought. 


MAID    MARIAN  169 

"  'How  now,"  he  thundered,  "  thou  rever's 
doxy  !  Still  obdurate  ?  " 

Her  very  heart  shook ;  but  she  stood  up  to 
him  bravely. 

"  Plunge  thy  knife  into  my  breast,  Sir  King," 
she  said,  "  and  with  my  last  sigh  I  will  praise 
thee." 

"  What  !  "  he  snarled — "  so  much  in  love  with 
Death?  We'll  see  to  it  thy  desire's  whetted  in 
his  fondling.  He  shall  prick  thee  here  and  there 
before  ye  close.  Away  with  her  to  the  Watch 
Tower  !  " 

It  was  at  least  a  respite,  and  she  had  dreaded 
the  instant  worst.  This  Watch,  or  Round  Turret, 
rose  from  the  north-east  angle  of  the  great  Keep. 
He  had  her  there  at  his  mercy.  Her  cries  might 
rise  to  heaven,  but  could  not  penetrate  the  dense 
fabric  below.  In  this  chill,  high  dungeon  they 
imprisoned  the  girl.  Its  cold,  its  dreadful 
loneliness,  scant  food,  and  the  silent  guard 
should  break  her  spirit,  the  wretch  thought. 
He  would  taste  her  submission  to  the  dregs,  then 
fling  her  to  his  lackeys  to  teach  her  what  it 
meant  to  flout  her  King.  She  answered  by 
starving  herself ;  on  which  came  Kay,  the  silky- 
tongued,  and  warned  her  smoothly  that  such  con- 


170         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

tumacy  could  only  invite  its  swift  reprisal.  She 
would  not  be  permitted  so  to  slip  through  her 
royal  lover's  hands.  Whereat  she  ate  all  that 
they  would  give  her,  and  despaired  the  more. 

There  was  no  escape,  none.  Locked  in  as 
she  was,  she  knew  that  her  every  movement  was 
canvassed  by  hidden  eyes,  her  every  sigh 
recorded.  And  Robin  made  no  sign. 

One  day  it  moved  her  to  hear  unwonted 
sounds  rising  from  the  outer  ward  below,  into 
which  the  public  were  admitted  on  occasion  of 
State  festivities,  executions,  and  so  forth.  The 
multitudinous  jollity  of  voices,  soaring  above  the 
whine  of  bugle  and  tap  of  drum,  proclaimed 
it  a  May-day  revel,  when  the  whole  place  was 
delivered  over  to  sport  and  merriment. 

She  could  not  see  from  her  high,  narrow 
window,  sunk  deep  in  the  wall ;  but  the  babble 
flowing  in  on  a  shaft  of  sunlight  made  her  heart 
warm  as  it  had  never  felt  for  days.  Some  spirit 
of  release  seemed  to  ride  in  on  the  happy  music, 
some  emotion  that  made  her  bosom  heave  and 
her  eyes  fill  thick  with  tears. 

She  was  standing,  drinking  in  the  merry  noise, 
when  her  lids  blinked  involuntarily,  and,  with 
a  swish  and  smack  on  the  ceiling  of  her  cell, 
something  alighted  at  her  feet.  She  fancied  on 


MAID    MARIAN  171 

the  instant  that  a  bird  had  flown  in  and  struck 
against  the  stone  ;  but,  looking  down  quickly, 
she  saw  that  it  was  a  broken  arrow — one  of  a 
dear,  familiar  pattern.  With  a  gasp  she  stooped, 
snatched  at  it,  and  stood  listening.  There  was 
no  sign  of  any  one  having  observed.  With  swift 
trembling  fingers  she  detached  a  strand  of  green 
worsted  which  was  knotted  about  the  shaft  under 
the  quill,  and  found  beneath  a  folded  scrap  of 
parchment,  which,  on  being  opened,  revealed  a 
glutinous  smear  of  brown  substance,  and  just 
these  four  woeful  words  written  above  : 

"  Poor  Robin's  Pledge.     Farewell." 

It  was  her  death-warrant. 

So  sweet  and  tragic,  her  heart  near  stopped 
from  its  sorrow  as  she  read  it.  She  knew  at 
once  what  it  was — a  mortal  Arab  poison,  given 
long  years  ago  to  her  woodland  lover  by  a 
follower  of  the  Lion  King.  It  might  serve  him 
in  a  sore  need,  had  been  the  words  accompany- 
ing the  gift — to  taste  it  was  death.  And  once 
Robin  had  shown  it  to  her,  proposing,  half -play- 
fully, that  they  should  pledge  one  another  in 
its  Lethe  were  Fate  ever  to  dispart  them. 

And  so  she  knew  that  her  last  hope  was  dead 
before  her.  Robin  could  not  come.  He  was 
hurt ;  he  was  ill ;  the  guards  were  too  many 


172         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

for  them,  the  Fates  too  strong,  and  their  only 
refuge  at  last  was  in  death.  He  had  sent  some 
one  of  his  cunning  archers,  Will  Scarlet  belike, 
to  take  advantage  of  this  merrymaking  to  speed 
the  message,  and,  when  she  had  realised  all  that 
it  meant  to  her,  she  fell  on  her  knees  with  a 
bursting  prayer  of  gratitude  to  the  Providence, 
to  the  dear  lover,  between  whom  her  honour 
was  held  safe  from  the  despoiler. 

She  never  doubted  that  her  Robin  meant  to 
share  the  pledge.  Likely  his  dear  spirit  was 
waiting  for  her  now,  eager  to  link  with  hers 
in  the  green  woods  where  first  their  loves  were 
spoken.  Fearful  of  interruption,  she  put  her  lips 
to  the  poison,  and  died  with  his  name  on  them. 

That  evening  came  Master  Kay  to  the  cell, 
with  a  sick  smile  on  his  mouth,  and  in  his  hands 
a  tray  of  comfortable  things,  including  a  flask 
of  drugged  wine.  The  King's  patience  was 
exhausted. 

But  when  he  saw  what  had  happened  he  stole 
out,  and  fled  to  join  the  refractory  Barons,  of 
whom  was  Fitz waiter,  father  of  Madelon  la  Belle. 

'And  in  the  meantime  Robin  did  not  die.  The 
poison  that  was  to  kill  him  came  years  later 
from  the  hand  of  his  kinswoman,  the  Prioress 
of  Kirklees.  Women  will  take  things  so  literally. 


THOMAS   PAINE 

"  AH,  monsieur  !  "  said  the  tall,  nervous  prisoner 
with  the  ravaged  face,  "  the  rights  of  one  man 
are  very  well  the  wrongs  of  another — that  is  a 
new  discovery  ;  but  you  did  not  make  it .  Even 
God — who,  nevertheless,  does  not  exist  just 
at  present — could  not  invent  a  gale  that  would 
favour  all  ships ;  and  yet  you  have  thought 
yourself  cleverer  than  God." 

"  I  do  not  know  you,"  interrupted  his  hearer 
and  fellow -captive  peevishly.  '  Why  do  you 
,presume  to  address  yourself  to  me?" 

"Why?"  The  other  lifted  a  little  broken 
plaque  or  medallion  which  hung  by  a  spoiled 
tricolour  ribbon  from  his  neck.  "  Do  you 
observe  this,  M.  Paine?  I  am  one  Garat,  ex- 
President  of  the  Sectional  Committee  of  the 
Bonnet -Rouge,  and  this  is  my  badge  of  office — 
or  what  remains  of  it.  It  represented  the  table 
of  the  law,  en  precis,  as  revealed  to  Mr.  Paine 
on  Sinai.  Wearing  it,  I  symbolised  the  Rights 


174         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

of  Man.  Well,  what  I  say  is,  *  Damn  the  Rights 
of  Man  !  '  " 

"  O  1  certainly,  if  you  wish,"  responded  Mr. 
Paine  coolly. 

'  They  are  fragile,  are  they  not  ?  "  said  the 
ex-President,  with  feverish  derision  ;  "  they  are 
apt  to  be  broken  in  any  scuffle.  And  where  is 
there  not  a  scuffle  where  opinions  differ — which 
they  always  do?  The  Rights  of  Man  have  not, 
I  perceive,  altered  the  nature  of  man,  which  is 
to  have  his  way  wherever  he  can  get  it. 
Observe  :  I  desired  to  do  justice  according  to 
this  tablet,  but  the  mob  would  not  permit  me. 
Instead  they  haled  a.way  their  suspect,  unheard ; 
and  I,  because  I  would  not  commit  him  unheard, 
was  pronounced  a  traitor  to  the  principles  I 
represented  and  was  despatched  to  this  Luxem- 
bourg, where,  to  my  profound  amazement,  I  find 
incarcerated  before  me  the  lawgiver  himself  ! 
Now  I  think  I  begin  to  understand  everything. 
Your  Rights  of  Man  could  not  even  save  your- 
self. What  the  devil  did  you  want  redeeming1 
others  with  them?  For  me,  I  would  welcome 
all  my  ancient  wrongs  to  find  myself  once  more 
a  prosperous  barber  in  the  Marche  Neuf." 


THOMAS    PAINE  175 

In  Paris  on  the  28th  July,  1794,  at  six  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  ended  at  a  stroke  the  Terror, 
lopped  off  by  the  head.  It  had  been  virile  and 
active  up  to  that  last  moment,  prepared  with 
its  daily  fournee,  all  chosen  and  set  out  for  the 
baking ;  only  in  the  result  the  order  had  been 
somewhat  changed.  Messieurs  the  Triumvirs 
and  their  following  had  been  called  upon  to  take 
the  place  of  their  destined  victims — that  was  the 
difference. 

But  the  evening  before  the  death -carts  had 
jolted  as  usual  on  their  monotonous  way  to  the 
Place  du  Trone ;  and  therein  surely  the  in- 
sensate tragedy  of  the  guillotine  had  found  its 
crowning  expression.  Eor  at  that  time  the  dis- 
solution of  the  Terror  had  actually  begun,  and 
the  smallest  gift  of  fortune  or  of  foresight  might 
have  saved  the  lives  of  a  half -hundred  innocents. 
There  is  no  sorrier  fate  than  to  perish  in  the 
lash  of  a  just  expiring  monster's  tail. 

There  was  one  man  appointed  to  figure  in 
those  tragic  last  tumbrils  who  had  the  best 
reason  in  the  world  for  considering  himself  a 
spoilt  child  of  Fortune.  This  was  Mr.  Deputy 
Thomas  Paine,  some  time  fallen  from  his  popular 
estate,  and  since  January  imprisoned  in  the 


176         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Luxembourg.  We  see  him,  as  he  stands  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  old  palace  nominally  taking 
exercise,  an  aloof,  self-complacent  little  man  of 
fifty-seven,  dressed  in  plain  brown,  and  wearing 
his  own  brown  hair,  which  nature  has  curled. 
His  eyes  are  large,  dreamy,  and  bagged  under- 
neath ;  his  drooping  nose  has  a  suggestion  of 
red  in  its  fall ;  he  has  a  moist,  temulent  mouth, 
rather  weighed  down  at  the  corners  by  pursey 
cheeks . 

It  is  evening  of  the  26th  July,  and  the 
prisoners,  their  brief  liberty  ended,  are  filing  back 
to  their  cells.  There  is  an  unwonted  excitement 
abroad.  Some  rumour  of  it  has  penetrated  the 
walls,  and  fluttered  the  breasts  of  the  poor  caged 
birds  within .  A  change  is  imminent ;  they  know 
not  what ;  but  scarce  any  could  be  for  the  worse. 
Meanwhile,  nevertheless,  Fouquier's  emissary  is 
up  above,  condemned  list  in  hand,  waiting  to 
prick  off  the  names  for  the  morrow's  batch.  The 
procedure  is  quite  simple ;  it  consists  in  a 
chalk-mark  made  on  the  door  of  each  victim's 
cell,  whence  on  the  following  morning  its  inmate 
will  pass  to  the  Conciergerie,  to  the  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal,  back  to  the  Conciergerie,  and 
thence  the  same  evening  to  the  scaffold.  That 


THOMAS    PAINE  177 

is  a  predestined  course,  which  much  treading 
has  made  monotonous  and  much  philosophy 
smoothed.  It  is  possible  even  to  walk  it  with 
a  gay  fatalism — under  prescriptive  circum- 
stances. Supposing,  however,  that  there  be 
truth  in  the  reports ;  that  the  Triumvirs  are 
threatened  and  the  Terror  itself  doomed?  What 
tragedy  on  tragedy,  then,  to  drown  in  the  turn 
of  the  tide  !  The  prisoners,  yesterday  resigned, 
to-day  are  pacing  their  cells  like  wild  beasts. 
Yet  nothing  will  avail  them.  The  last  tumbrils 
must  have  their  load. 

Paine  was  sensible  of  their  misery ;  he 
believed  in  the  imminence  of  a  political  volte  - 
face,  and  he  pitied  them.  For  himself  he  had 
not,  nor  ever  had  had,  the  least  apprehension. 
As  he  lingered  in  abstraction,  the  last  to  with- 
draw, his  own  security,  his  own  importance,  were 
the  first  of  convictions  in  his  mind.  As  a 
moderate,  he  was  unacceptable  to  the  extremists 
— it  amounted  to  no  more  than  that.  He  had 
been  put  out  of  the  way  because  he  was  in  the 
way.  But  they  would  never  dare  more  than  to 
coerce  into  silence  so  notable  an  apostle  of 
liberty.  He  reviewed,  with  some  smug  satisfac- 
tion, the  processes  of  his  own  career.  By  origin 

12 


178         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

a  Norfolk  staymaker,  by  chance  an  exciseman, 
by  nature  a  demagogue,  his  inherent  force  of 
character  had  lifted  him  to  a  position  which 
suffered  at  the  moment  only  a  temporary  eclipse. 
Was  it  to  be  believed  that  he  who  had  forcibly 
contributed  to  the  Declaration  of  American 
Independence,  who  had  been  honoured  and  re- 
warded by  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  who 
had  earned  Franklin's  friendship  and  Burke's 
hostility,  who  had  been  elected  by  the  Depart- 
ment of  Calais  to  sit  in  the  French  Convention, 
and  whose  bold  assertion  of  the  Rights  of  Man 
had  been  accepted  for  the  very  ritual  of  the 
Revolution,  would  be  let  to  be  snuffed  out  by 
the  dirty  ringers  of  a  murdering  attorney? 
Fouquier  dare  not  do  it ;  Robespierre,  Couthon, 
St.  Just,  the  all-powerful  Triumvirate,  were  not 
assured  enough  for  such  a  venture.  Besides, 
they  represented,  in  an  age  of  reason,  the  crown- 
ing expression  of  reason — that  government  by 
minority  which  had  always  been  a  pet  theory 
of  his. 

He  frowned,  then  lifted  his  eyebrows  with 
a  smile.  Something  in  the  connection,  a  memory 
of  his  own  once  discomfiture  on  a  certain  occa- 
sion, had  recurred  to  him.  It  had  happened  in 


THOMAS    PAINE  179 

London,  in  a  Fleet  Street  tavern,  two  or  three 
years  before.  How  remote  it  all  seemed  !  Dr. 
Wolcot — he  who  called  himself  Peter  Pindar- 
had  been  there — a  huge,  overbearing  old  volup- 
tuary, with  flashing  eyes,  and  a  flashing  wit,  and 
a  scurrilous  tongue.  Paine  had  been  discoursing 
to  an  admiring  audience  on  the  reasonableness 
of  deciding  questions  in  Parliament  by  minorities 
instead  of  majorities,  "  since,"  said  he,  "  the 
proportion  of  men  of  sense  to  ignoramuses  is 
but  as  one  to  ten.  Wherefore  the  wisest  portion 
of  mankind  are  always  in  the  minority  in 
debate  "—a  statement  which  the  Doctor  dis- 
puted. "  Still,"  said  the  latter,  "  I  will  assert 
nothing  for  myself,  but  leave  the  question  to  the 
company." 

Now,  at  that,  Paine,  confident  of  his  surround- 
ings, had  risen,  and  put  the  question  to  the  vote, 
those  who  agreed  with  him  to  hold  up  their 
hands .  Whereupon  every  hand  had  gone  up,  and 
the  Doctor  had  arisen,  with  a  bow.  "  Gentle- 
men," he  said,  "  I  thank  you  for  this  decision 
in  my  favour.  The  wise  minority,  as  represented 
in  my  person,  carries  the  vote.  I  pronounce 
Mr.  Paine  wrong."  And  he  had  swallowed  his 
glassful  and  lumbered  out. 


180         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Somehow  the  prisoner  remembered  that 
occasion  with  pleasure.  It  suggested  a  form 
of  liberty  much  more  in  accord  with  his  real 
nature  than  a  world  of  abstract  utilitarianisms. 
The  wine  in  the  Luxembourg  was  thin  ;  indul- 
gences were  few ;  they  often  dined  off  stale 
sprats.  The  end  of  his  own  nose,  touched  by  a 
ray  of  the  slanting  sun,  caught  his  eye  as  with 
the  glint  of  a  ruby.  He  pished  under  his  breath. 

"  Bah  !  "  he  muttered.  "  He  was  a  domineer- 
ing beast ;  but  I  wish  I  were  with  him  now  at 
Dick's  in  Fleet  Street." 

•He  sighed  and  stirred ;  and  it  was  at  that 
moment  that  the  stranger  of  the  broken  plaque 
had  approached  and  accosted  him.  He  was  a 
newcomer,  and  unknown  to  the  ex-Deputy. 

"  To  the  devil  with  your  Rights  of  Man  !  " 
ended  the  tall  prisoner.  He  caught  at  Paine, 
who  had  turned  an  angry  shoulder  to  him  and 
was  going.  "Is  it  not  so?"  he  demanded. 
'  They  are  just  one's  right,  it  appears,  to  run 
with  the  crowd  the  crowd's  way.  If  one  takes 
the  Liberty  to  pause  a  moment  for  reflection, 
one  is  trampled  underfoot  by  'Fraternity  and 
packed  off  to  discuss  Equality  with  the  other 
heads  in  the  basket." 


THOMAS    PAINE  181 

"  I  would  have  you  observe,"  said  Paine 
frigidly,  "  that  the  turnkey  is  summoning  us  to 
return  to  our  cells." 

'He  moved  away,  but  the  other  followed  close 
beside  him,  agitated  and  voluble. 

"  Cells  !  "  he  cried—"  cells  1  But  is  not  that 
a  fine  comment  on  your  propaganda  ?  I  interpret 
your  Rights  according  to  the  tables,  and  you 
send  me  to  the  guillotine  for  it." 

"  I ?  "  said  Paine.    He  stopped  in  desperation. 

"  Is  not  your  emissary  up  there  now,"  cried 
Garat,  "  marking  off  'the  doomed?  " 

"  My  emissary?  "  said  Paine. 

"  You  are  as  responsible  as  any  for  him,"  said 
the  ex-President,  kneading  his  damp  palms 
together.  "  If  you  would  try  to  blow  east  and 
west  at  once,  meddling  with  unknown  forces. 
You  should  have  remembered,  monsieur,  that  the 
first  right  of  man  is  to  existence.  There  would 
have  been  a  fine  air  of  originality  about  jthat 
precept.  It  has  always  been  the  easiest  thing  in 
the  world  to  solve  h,uman  problems  by  killing.1' 

The  demagogue  took  refuge  behind  derision. 

"  I  perceive  you  are  simply  a  coward,"  he 
said. 

"  Yes,"  cried  Garat,  his  lips  trembling.     "  I 


182         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

am  simply  that.  What  can  you  expect,  who  have 
decreed  us  annihilation  for  our  despair?  Our 
ancient  wrongs  conceded  us  a  heaven  after  all ; 
your  modern  rights  have  taken  it  away.  It  is 
all  very  well  for  you,  safeguarded  by  your  posi- 
tion, to  pretend  to  despise  death ;  it  would  be 
another  matter,  I  expect,  if  you  feared,  like  me, 
to  find  the  chalk-mark  on  your  door." 

"  Rest  assured,"  said  Paine  contemptuously. 
"  If  you  have  sought  to  serve  Justice,  Justice  will 
not  destroy  her  own." 

"But  there  are  accidents." 

'  I  answer  for  her,  I  say,"  insisted  the  dema- 
gogue, with  an  air  of  pompous  finality.  "  You 
may  trust  to  my  own  share,  citizen — grossly  as 
you  libel  it — in  her  modern  scheme,  which  pro- 
vides against  such  possibilities.  No  trick  of 
Fortune  is  permitted  nowadays  to  spare  the 
guilty  or  condemn  the  innocent." 

"But  are  you  sure,  monsieur?  Monsieur,  in 
God's  name  !  " 

Paine  waved  the  creature  aside  with  a  peremp- 
tory gesture,  and  continued  his  way  across  the 
yard.  They  were  the  last  to  enter  the  prison, 
and  they  mounted  the  naked  stairs  almost 
together.  In  the  same  corridor  above  were  their 
cells  situated,  and  Torne,  the  surly  gaoler,  was 


THOMAS    PAINE  183 

already  holding  half -closed  the  door  of  Carat's, 
which  came  first.  It  was  bare  of  the  fatal  sign, 
and  Garat  ran  into  his  fold  with  a  bleat  like  a 
comforted  sheep. 

Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  with  a  shrug  and  sneer, 
tripped  on  his  way  to  his  own  cell.  Reaching 
it,  he  raised  his  eyes,  staggered  slightly,  and 
gave  a  single  gasp.  Its  door  was  flung  back 
against  the  outer  wall,  and  the  mark  was  on  it. 

Inside!  He  had  but  to  close  it  upon  himself, 
and  the  mark  would  vanish.  Eouquier's  hurry- 
ing emissary,  not  being  of  the  wise  minority, 
had  overlooked  that  contingency. 

Torne,  having  locked  in  Garat,  was  coming 
down  the  corridor.  Screening  the  sign  with  his 
arm,  the  ex-Deputy  swung  round  the  door  and 
shut  himself  in. 

He  died  a  dozen  deaths  before  he  heard  the 
key  turn  in  the  lock  outside — a  hundred  before 
the  news  of  next  day's  coup  d'etat  came  to  restore 
life  to  ten  thousand  withering  hopes. 

But  the  tumbrils  went  on  the  morrow,  and 
for  the  last  time,  all  the  same — only  he  was  not 
a  passenger  by  them.  It  was  just  his  luck  that 
Fortune  was  offered  such  a  characteristic  way  of 
retaliating  upon  him  for  his  boasted  command 
of  her. 


FAIR    ROSAMOND 

A  UADY,  accompanied  by  a  small  armed  retinue, 
rode  out  of  a  forest  glade  near  Woodstock,  and, 
pausing  beside  the  waters  of  the  Glyme,  which 
here  came  tumbling  in  a  little  weir,  smooth  as 
a  barrel  of  glass,  over  an  artificial  dam,  reined 
in  her  steed,  and  sat  gazing,  in  the  full  glow, 
of  noon,  upon  the  scene  before  her. 

It  was  a  scene  of  perfect  pastoral  .quiet- 
woodland  and  meadow  as  far  as  the  eye  could 
reach,  broken  by  green  hillocks  and  dominated 
by  a  solitary  keep  of  stone  set  on  a  leafy  height 
in  the  foreground.  To  the  right  a  film  of  floating 
vapour  showed  where  a  hidden  hamlet  smoked. 
There  was  no  other  token  of  human  life  or 
habitation  anywhere. 

The  lady,  halting  a  little  in  advance  of  her 
party,  made  a  preoccupied  motion  with  her  hand, 
whereupon  there  pushed  forward  to  her  a  certain 
horseman,  who  dragged  with  him  a  churl  roped 


185 


186 

to  his  saddle-bow.  The  knight  was  in  bascinet 
and  chain -mail  like  the  others,  but  his  shield 
and  pavon  were  emblazoned  with  arms  betoken- 
ing his  higher  rank. 

'*  Messer  de  Polwarth,"  said  the  lady,  "  is  not 
this  in  sooth  Love's  paradise?" 

"  Certes,  madam,"  he  answered  grimly ;  "  it 
is  the  King's  Manor  of  Woodstock." 

She  laughed ;  then,  stiffening  suddenly  in  her 
saddle,  pointed  upwards. 

"  Look  I  "  she  said. 

A  poising  kite,  as  she  spoke,  had  dropped  to 
the  wood-edge,  and  thence  rose  swiftly  with  a 
dove  beating  in  its  talons. 

"  Behold  a  fruitful  omen,"  she  cried,  and 
turned  on  the  hind :  "  Dog  !  where  lies  the 
garden  ?  " 

De  Polwarth  struck  the  fellow  a  steely  blow 
across  the  scruff. 

"  Answer,  beast !  " 

The  man,  a  sullen,  unkempt  savage,  pointed 
with  an  arm  like  a  snag. 

"  Down  yon,  a  bowshot  from  the  lodge. 
Boun  by  the  waterside." 

The  lady  nodded,  her  eyes  fixed  in  a  sort  of 
smiling  trance.  She  was  Eleanor  of  Aquitaine, 


FAIR    ROSAMOND  187 

no  less,  the  divorced  wife  of  France,  the 
neglected  and  embittered  Queen  of  England,  and 
she  was  at  this  moment  on  the  verge  of  flight 
to  those  rebellious  sons  of  hers  who  conspired 
in  Guienne  against  their  father. 

But,  before  she  fled,  she  had  just  one  deed 
of  savage  vengeance  to  perpetrate,  and  of  that 
she  would  not  be  baulked,  though  to  accom- 
plish it  she  must  ride  across  half  England. 
Somewhere,  she  knew,  in  this  place  was  situated 
that  "  house  of  wonderful  working — wrought 
like  unto  a  knot  in  a  garden,"  where  lived  her 
hated  child -rival,  that  beautiful  frail  rose  of 
the  Cliffords  who  had  borne  the  King  a  son. 
So  much  the  worse  for  her — so  much  the 
worse. 

The  Queen  descended  to  earth,  spiritually  and 
literally.  She  was  dressed  like  a  queen  in  a 
belted  blue  robe  latticed  with  gold,  and  a  long 
purple  cloak  over.  A  jewelled  coronet  embraced 
her  headcloth  and  the  headcloth  her  face.  The 
rim  of  hair  that  showed  under  was  still,  for  all 
her  fifty  odd  years,  crow  black.  Her  colour 
was  high,  her  frame  masculine ;  the  prominence 
of  her  lower  lip  gave  her  a  cruel  expression, 
and  without  belying  her. 


188         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  Nay,  de  Polwarth,"  she  said,  as  the  knight 
made  a  movement  to  dismount.  "  No  hand  in 
this  but  mine." 

He  retorted  gruffly  :  '  The  place  is  reputed 
impenetrable." 

She  smiled.  "  Hate  will  find  out  a  way. 
Rest  you  here  till  I  return." 

Never  to  be  gainsaid,  she  went  off  alone  by 
the  streamside,  and  soon  disappeared  among  the 
trees  beyond. 

Her  way  took  her  under  the  slope  of  the  hill 
which  ran  up  to  the  King's  Manor.  At  first, 
looking  through  the  branches,  she  could  catch 
glimpses  of  the  strong,  irregular  pile,  butting 
like  a  mountain  crag  from  the  forehead  of  the 
green  height ;  but,  in  a  little,  the  density  of 
the  trees  increasing,  the  house  was  hidden  from 
her  view,  and  she  had  only  the  thick,  towering 
woods  and  the  little  stream  for  company. 

On  and  on  she  went,  resolute  to  her  purpose, 
thrilled  with  some  presentiment  of  its  near 
accomplishment — and  suddenly  a  white  rabbit 
ran  out  from  the  green  almost  under  her  feet. 

She  stopped  dead  on  the  instant,  and,  as  she 
stood  motionless,  the  thicket  parted  near  the  bole 
of  a  great  beech-tree  hard  by,  and  a  little  boy 


FAIR    ROSAMOND  189 

slipped  out  into  the  open.  He  was  pink-cheeked, 
Saxon -haired  and  eyed — a  shapely  manikin  of 
five  or  so.  Intent  on  recapturing  his  pet,  he 
did  not  at  first  notice  the  stranger ;  but  when 
he  turned,  with  the  bunny  hugged  in  his  arms, 
he  stood  rosily  transfixed.  In  a  swift  stride  or 
two  the  Queen  was  upon  him,  cutting  off  his 
retreat. 

She  stooped,  with  a  little  exultant  laugh. 

'  What  is  thy  name,  sweet  imp?  "  she  said. 

He  pouted,  half -frightened,  but  still  essaying 
the  man,  rubbing  one  foot  against  the  opposite 
calf. 

"  Willie  Clifford,  madam,"  he  said,  wondering 
for  a  moment  at  her  crown ;  but  then  panic 
overtook  him. 

"  Nay,  Willie,"  said  the  Queen,  holding  him 
with  a  hand  that  belied  its  own  softness  ;  "I 
like  thy  tunic  of  white  lawn  and  thy  pretty  shoon 
so  latched  with  gold.  Hast  a  fond  mother, 
Willie — whose  name  I  will  guess  of  thee  for 
Rosamond  ?  And  for  thy  father,  Willie — do  you 
see  him  often  ?  " 

"  He  hath  a  crown  like  thine,  but  finer,"  said 
the  child ;  "  and  when  he  comes  he  puts  it  on 
my  head."  Something  in  the  staring  face  above 


190         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

him  awoke  his  sudden  fear.  He  began  to 
struggle. 

"  Let  me  go  I  "  he  cried—"  I  want  to  go  back 
to  my  minny." 

'Thy  minny?"  said  the  Queen.  "One 
moment,  child.  Is  that  thy  secret  way  behind 
the  tree  there  ?  " 

"  I  will  not  tell  thee,"  cried  the  boy.  "  I 
want  my  minny  !  Let  me  go  1  " 

With  one  swift  movement  she  tore  the  rabbit 
from  his  arms,  and  holding  it  aloft  with  her 
left  hand,  with  her  right  whipped  a  jewelled 
bodkin  from  its  sheath  at  her  waist,  and  stabbed 
the  little  white  body,  stabbed  it,  stabbed  it. 
Then  she  flung  the  convulsed  encrimsoned  thing 
to  the  ground,  and,  resheathing  the  weapon,  held 
the  child  with  a  stare  of  fury. 

The  swiftness,  the  savagery,  the  dreadful 
novelty  of  the  act  had  had  their  purposed  effect 
on  him.  His  eyes  widened,  his  throat  swelled; 
but  the  scream  to  which  he  was  on  the  instant 
impelled  never  came.  His  little  soul  was 
paralysed ;  he  was  utter  slave  to  horror.  If 
she  had  told  him  at  that  moment  to  lie  down 
and  go  to  sleep,  he  would  have  tried  to  obey 
her  will,  though  the  unuttered  sobs  were  half- 
bursting  his  bosom. 


FAIR    ROSAMOND  191 

"Now,"  she  said,  "now!"  panting  3.  little. 
"  Seest,  thou  harlot's  whelp?  Cross  me  again, 
and  so  shalt  thou  be  served.  Wait  here — move 
one  step  hence  an  thou  darest — until  I  come 
again." 

She  cast  one  final  look  of  menace  at  him, 
then,  stepping  to  the  beech-tree,  parted  the 
green  and  disappeared. 

It  was  a  cunning  blind,  as  she  had  expected. 
The  great  trunk  was  so  packed  amongst  the 
thickets  of  the  hillside  that  none  would  have 
guessed  its  concealment  of  a  scarce-discernible 
track  which  threaded  the  matted  growths  above 
and  behind  it.  Mounting  by  this,  the  malign 
creature  came  suddenly  upon  a  broken  opening 
in  the  rock,  so  mossy  and  so  choked  with  foliage 
that  its  presence  would  have  been  quite  un- 
suspected from  the  glade  below.  She  stopped; 
she  uttered  a  little  gloating  exclamation  ;  for 
there,  looped  over  a  projection  of  the  stone,  was 
the  end  of  a  strong  green  thread  hanging  out 
of  the  darkness.  The  clue,  of  which  she  had 
heard  whisper  with  but  small  faith,  was  actually 
in  her  hand .  Providence  had  doomed  the  foolish 
mother  to  permit  her  child  to  sport  with  the  very 
means  designed  against  her  own  destruction. 


192         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

The  cavity  led  into  a  ramification  of  passages, 
roughly  trenched  and  hewn  out  of  the  calcareous 
slate  of  the  hill.  Occasionally  roofed,  mostly 
open,  always  tangled  in  foliage,  and  so  cunningly 
devised  to  mislead  that  it  had  been  near  humanly 
impossible  to  resolve  its  intricacies  without  such 
guide  to  follow,  the  labyrinth  led  the  Queen  by 
a  complicated  course  to  a  sense  of  approaching 
light  and  release.  And  then  all  in  a  moment 
the  thread  had  come  to  an  end  against  a  stake 
to  which  it  was  fastened ;  and  there  was  a 
pleasant  garden  sunk  in  a  hollow  of  the  hill, 
and  a  fair  young  woman,  with  an  awaiting,  some- 
what troubled  expression  on  her  face,  standing 
hard  by.  She  had  evidently  spun  the  clue,  and 
returned  the  first  by  it  from  the  glade,  to  make 
sport  for  her  little  man. 

The  intruder  took  all  in  at  a  glance— 
the  expectant  figure,  the  quiet,  inaccessible 
pleasaunce,  the  roof  of  a  gilt  pavilion  rising, 
a  long  stone's -throw  away,  above  the  branches 
of  a  flowering  orchard ;  dominating  all,  and 
hiding  this  lovely  secret  in  its  lap,  the  wooded 
hill  crowned  by  its  protecting  keep. 

The  young  woman,  with  one  startled  glance, 
turned  to  fly;  but  in  the  very  act,  staggered 


FAIR    ROSAMOND  193 

by  a  recollection,  turned,  and  came  towards  the 
Queen,  a  hand  pressed  to  her  bosom.  She  was  a 
frail  thing,  in  the  ethereal  as  well  as  the  worldly 
sense — fragile,  it  seemed,  as  china,  and  as 
delicately  tinted.  All  pink  and  cream,  with  pale 
golden  hair,  her  darker  eyebrows  were  the  only 
definite  note  of  colour  in  a  thin  face.  Even 
her  long  robe  of  pale  green  suggested  the 
anaemia  of  tulip-leaves  forced  into  premature 
growth. 

"  A  weak  craft  to  have  borne  so  huge  a  sin," 
said  Eleanor,  as  the  girl  approached.  She  eyed 
her  with  malignant  scorn,  her  under  lip  pro- 
jecting. "  So,  wanton,"  she  said,  "  dost  know 
the  wife  thou  hast  wronged?  " 

The  other  gave  a  little  mortal  start  and  cry  : 
'  The  Queen  !  "  and  could  utter  no  more. 

A  small,  hateful  laugh  answered  her. 

'  The  wife,  fool  !  the  she -wolf  against  whom 
you  thought  to  guard  your  fold  with  straws. 
Why,  look  at  you — I  could  peel  you  in  my  hands 
— a  bloodless  stalk,  without  heat  or  beauty  1  " 

"  Spare  me  1  " 

"  Aye,  as  the  wolf  spares  the  lamb,  the  hawk 
the  wren.  Let  me  look  on  you.  So  this  is  a 
King's  fancy.  I  could  have  wrought  him  better 

13 


194         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

from  a  kitchen-scrub.  Quick  !  I  am  in  ;  I  have 
no  time  to  lose,  and  thine  has  come.  Poison  or 
steel — make  thy  choice." 

"  O,  madam,  in  pity  !  My  heart — I  have 
been  weak  and  ill — I  shall  not  vex  thee  long  I  " 

"God's  blood!  And  baulk  my  vengeance? 
Come — poison " 

"  O  !    What  poison  ?  " 

"  Why,  that  thou  art  betrayed — supplanted. 
Another  leman  lies  in  thy  bed — wife  to  one 
Blewit,  a  willing  cuckold.  Drink  it,  thy 
desertion,  to  the  dregs." 

"  Sin  must  not  beshrew  sin.  It  is  bitter  to 
the  death;  but  I  drink  it." 

"  O,  thou  toad !  Thou  wilt  not  die,  for 
all  thy  stricken  heart?  Will  this  kill  thee 
then?" 

She  whipped  out  the  red  stiletto.  Rosamond 
uttered  a  faint  shriek. 

"  Blood  1  " 

The  Queen  brandished  it  before  her  eyes. 

"  I  met  thy  whelp  in  the  glade.  It  was  he 
who  betrayed  the  way  to  me." 

The  girl  gasped  and  tottered  forward. 

'I  let  him  to  his  death.  Monster,  thou  hast 
killed  my  Willie — my  boy,  my  one  darling  1  " 


FAIR    ROSAMOND  195 

She  made  an  effort  to  leap  forward — swayed — 
and  fell  her  full  length  upon  the  grass. 

The  Queen,  softly  replacing  her  blade,  stood 
staring  down.  No  sound  or  movement  followed 
on  the  fall.  Stooping,  she  gazed  long  and 
silently  into  the  thin  face,  then,  without  a  word, 
turned  and  retreated  as  she  had  come. 

The  boy  was  standing,  white  and  tearless,  by 
his  dead  rabbit  as  she  parted  the  leaves  and 
slunk  forth. 

"  Go  to  thy  mother,  child,"  she  whispered, 
hoarse  and  small.  "  She  is  ill." 


THE    GAEILEAN 

A1  SOLITARY  goatherd  sat  crouched  on  a  slope 
above  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  It  was  approachingi 
morning,,  and  he  had  lit  a  little  fire  on  the  rocks 
in  order  to  roast  his  breakfast  of  fish.  It  was 
still  dark,  though  the  embroidered  velvet  canopy 
overhead  was  beginning  to  reveal  a  grape -like 
bloom  along  its  eastern  verge.  Seven  miles 
across,  on  the  opposite  shore,  the  lamps  of 
Tiberias,  minute  and  liquid,  dripped  threads  of 
gold  into  the  motionless  lake  ;  to  the  north  the 
snows  of  Mount  Hermon  lay  like  a  pillow  to  the 
quiet  hills  ;  everywhere  was  the  swoon  and  still- 
ness which  characterise  that  last  deep  hour  of 
slumber  when  sleep  itself  sleeps. 

The  smoke  of  the  goatherd's  fire  rose  in  a 
thin,  unbroken  shaft ;  the  hiss  and  explosion  of 
its  thorns  were  uttered  in  a  subdued  voice  $  he 
himself  sat  like  a  figure  carved  in  old  ivory. 
His  arms  and  legs  were  bare  ;  his  only  garment 


197 


198         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

was  a  tunic  of  brown  sackcloth ;  he  was  the 
gauntest  man  of  his  race  in  all  Galilee.  He 
suggested  some  grotesque  vulturine  fledgling 
rather  than  a  human  being,  in  his  leathery  skin, 
denuded  scalp,  prominent  eyes,  and  great  horny 
beak  of  a  nose .  Whatever  juice  there  was  in  him 
must  have  been  as  brown  and  acrid  as  a  walnut's. 

He  had  laid  his  sticks  upon  a  little  ledge  or 
plateau  where  the  green  of  the  banks,  rising 
some  fifty  feet  or  so  from  the  margin  of  the 
lake,  first  strayed  to  lose  itself  among  the  waste 
and  tumble  of  the  sandstone  heights  above. 
Scattered  among  the  bents  and  yellow  boulders 
from  which  he  had  descended  lay  his  silent  flock. 
He  was  the  only  soul  awake,  it  seemed,  in  all 
that  heaped-up  solitude. 

Suddenly  he  raised  his  head.  The  sound  of 
a  footstep,  distant  at  first,  but  regularly  approach- 
ing, penetrated  to  his  ears.  It  fell  low  and  loud, 
unmistakably  human,  until  it  resolved  itself  into 
the  tramp  of  a  worried  man  coming  over  the 
hills  from  the  south.  The  goatherd  was  not 
interested  or  concerned.  He  sat  apathetic,  even 
when  the  traveller,  appearing  round  a  bend  of 
the  rocks,  walked  grunting  into  the  firelight  and 
revealed  himself  a  Roman  soldier. 


THE    GALILEAN  199 

The  newcomer  had  a  heavy,  colourless  face 
with  thick  black  eyebrows.  The  close  chin-piece 
of  his  small  cap-like  helmet  gave  his  lower  jaw 
a  bulldog  look.  His  body  to  the  hips  was  cased 
in  a  laminated  cuirass  of  brass,  epaulets  of  which 
covered  his  shoulders,  and  his  short  tunic  was 
garnished  with  hanging  straps  of  leather  plated 
with  strips  of  the  same  metal.  Skin-tight  drawers 
descended  to  the  middle  of  his  calves,  and  were 
succeeded  by  puttees  of  pliant  felt,  which  ended 
in  military  caligas  with  spiked  soles.  A  short, 
double-edged  sword  hung  in  a  sheath  at  his  right 
side,  and  in  his  hand  he  carried  a  javelin  of  about 
his  own  height,  the  shaft  of  which  had  served 
him  for  a  staff.  -Weary  and  benighted  as  he 
appeared  to  be,  his  speech  and  bearing  expressed 
the  arrogance  of  the  dominant  race. 

"  Ho  !  "  he  said,  "  ho  !  "  and  stretched  him- 
self relieved.  "  Food  and  fire,  and  a  respite  at 
least  from  his  cursed  chase.  What  lights  are 
yon  across  the  lake,  goatherd?  " 

"Tiberias." 

It  might  have  been  an  automaton  speaking. 
The  soldier  swore  by  all  his  gods. 

"  Eighty  miles  from  Jerusalem — a  land  of 
rogues  and  fools  !  Now  directed  this  way,  now 


200         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

that,  mountains  where  I  was  told  valleys,  and 
torrents  for  fords,  and  to  find  at  last  that  I  have 
taken  the  wrong  bank  !  Harkee,  thou  wooden 
Satyrus  :  my  horse  fell  foundered  among  the 
hills,  and  I  saw  thy  fire  and  made  for  it  on  foot. 
Well,  I  carry  despatches  for  thy  Tetrach,  and 
thou  tellest  me  that  is  Tiberias  yonder.  Should 
I  not  do  well  to  beat  thee  for  it?  " 

The  large  eyes  of  the  goatherd  conned  the 
speaker  immovably. 

"  Tiberias,"  he  repeated.  And  then  he  added  : 
"  With  dawn  will  come  the  fishermen." 

The  soldier  cursed :  "  What,  calf !  "  and 
checked  himself.  '  Thou  meanest,"  he  said,  "  a 
boat  to  carry  me  across  ?  "  He  heaved  out  a 
sigh.  "  Well,  goatherd,  so  be  it ;  and  while  I 
wait  I  starve.  Dost  thou  not  hunger  too?  " 

"  Aye,"  said  the  goatherd,  "  always  and  for 
ever." 

The  fish  were  spluttering  on  the  embers.  The 
soldier  speared  one  with  his  javelin,  and,  blow- 
ing on  it,  began  to  eat  unceremoniously. 

"  I  would  not  concede  so  much  to  my  Fates," 
he  said.  "  I  would  rob  sooner.  Besides,  here 
is  proof  plenty  that  you  lie,  old  goatherd." 

The    goatherd    bent    forward,    and    prodded 


THE    GALILEAN  201 

the  speaker  once  with  a  finger  like  a  crooked 
stick. 

"  How  old  wouldst  call  me?  "  he  said. 

"  A'  hundred." 

"  I  am  seven  and  twenty,  Roman." 

The  soldier  laughed  and  stared. 

"  Bearest  thy  years  ill.  Since  when  beganst  to 
age?  " 

"  Since  I  began  to  starve." 

"  And  when  was  that?  " 

'  When  one  said  to  me  :  '  Feed  on  the  illusions 
of  the  flesh  until  I  come  again.'  ' 

"  One— one?     What  one  ?  " 

"  A  strange  white  man.  They  called  him 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  about  here." 

The  soldier,  his  cheek  bulged  with  fish, 
stopped  masticating1  a  moment  to  stare,  then 
burst  into  a  hoarse  laugh. 

"  »Ho  ho  !  my  friend  !  Art  in  a  sorry  case 
indeed  !  Thou  shalt  starve  and  starve,  by  Caesar. 
Tell  me  the  story,  goatherd." 

The  gaunt   creature   mused  a   little. 

"  Why,  there  is  none,  Roman,  but  just  this. 
I  had  heard  of  him  and  scoffed — I,  a  practical 
man — and  one  day  (it  was  many  seasons  back) 
he  came  across  the  water  to  these  hills,  and 


202         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

a  great  multitude  followed  and  gathered  to  him 
from  all  sides.  And  they  brought  with  them 
a  number  that  were  maimed  and  sick,  and  the 
man  touched  them  and  they  appeared  healed, 
rising  and  blessing  his  name,  so  that  I,  though 
counting  it  an  illusion  of  the  spirit,  could  not 
but  marvel  in  his  magic  and  the  people's  blind- 
ness. Now  the  crowd  abode  here  into  the  third 
day,  and  they  felt  neither  thirst  nor  hunger ; 
but  I,  that  durst  not  leave  my  flock,  wait- 
ing for  them  to  go,  was  like  a  ravenous 
wolf.  And  on  the  third  day  this  Jesus 
called  for  food  to  give  to  his  followers,  and 
some  that  were  his  went  down  to  the  boat,  and 
I  with  them.  And,  lo  !  there  were  but  a  few 
loaves  and  fishes — nothing  at  all  for  such  a  multi- 
tude. But  I  helped  to  carry  these  up,  and  on  the 
way  the  largest  fish  of  all  I  hid  beneath  my 
tunic,  for  I  thought :  '  Great  he  may  be,  but 
nothing  is  lost  that  I  take  precautions  against 
his  failure  to  assuage  my  hunger.'  Then  did 
he  bid  us  all  to  sit  upon  the  ground,  and  he 
blessed  and  brake  the  fish  and  bread  ;  and  so  it 
happened — account  it  to  what  you  will — for  every 
soul  there  was  a  meal  and  to  spare.  But  when 
it  came  to  my  turn  he  would  give  me  none  ; 


THE    GALILEAN  203 

only,  gazing  on  me,  he  bade  me,  since  faith  I 
had  not,  to  feed  on  the  illusions  of  the  flesh 
until  he  came  again.  And  I  laughed  to  myself, 
thinking  of  the  fish  ;  but,  Roman,  that  fish  when 
I  came  to  devour  it  was  like  a  shadow  in  the 
water,  having  form  but  no  substance,  and  so 
it  is  with  all  food  to  me  since.  Though  I  be- 
hold it,  handle  it,  I  put  a  shadow  to  my  lips. 
Yet  every  day  do  I  prepare  my  meal,  hoping  the 
curse  removed,  and  knowing  always  it  shall  not 
be  until  he  come  again." 

The  soldier  broke  into  a  roar  of  laughter. 

''  Until  he  come  again  !  "  he  cried,  "  until  he 
come  again !  O,  a  jockeyed  Jew,  a  poor 
deluded  Jew  !  " 

He  was  so  gloriously  tickled  that  he  had  to 
gasp  and  choke  himself  into  sobriety. 

"  Harkee,  goatherd,"  he  said  presently ; 
"  there  was  a  day,  not  long  past,  in  Jerusalem 
— a  lamentable  day  for  thee.  It  thundered — 
gods,  how  it  thundered,  rattling  the  Place  of 
Skulls  !  I  ought  to  remember,  seeing  I  was  on 
duty  there.  Nazareth  was  it,  now?  Why,  to 
be  sure — I  know  my  letters,  and  it  was  writ 
plain  enough  and  high  enough.  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  who  saved  others,  but  could  not  save 


204         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

himself — that  was  it — one  of  three  rogues  con- 
demned. Well,  he  laid  an  embargo  on  thee,  did 
he?  You  see  this  spear- 
He  paused,  in  the  very  act  of  lifting  his 
javelin,  and  sat  staring  stupidly  at  it.  Its  point 
was  tipped  with  crimson. 

'  The  rising  sun  !  "  muttered  the  goatherd, 
and,  getting  suddenly  to  his  feet,  stood  gazing 
seawards.  The  soldier  came  and  stood  beside 
him. 

The  whole  wide  valley,  while  they  spoke,  had 
opened  to  the  morning  like  a  rose,  the  clustered 
hills  its  petals,  its  calyx  the  deep  lake,  the  lights 
upon  it  dewdrops  shining  at  its  heart.  And  there 
upon  the  dim  waters,  swinging  close  inshore, 
was  a  fisherman's  boat,  its  crew  gathering  in 
an  empty  net. 

Now  the  two  on  the  hill  stood  too  remote  to 
distinguish  sounds  or  faces,  while  the  conforma- 
tion of  the  rocks  hid  the  shore  from  their  view. 
But  of  a  sudden,  as  they  looked,  the  forms  in 
the  boat  started  erect,  and,  all  standing  in  a 
huddled  group,  appeared  to  gaze  landwards. 
And  instantly,  as  if  they  had  received  therefrom 
some  direction,  they  seized  and  cast  their  net 
the  other  side  of  the  boat  and  drew  on  it,  and 


THE    GALILEAN  205 

the  watchers  saw  by  their  straining  muscles  that 
the  net  was  full.  Perceiving  which,  one  of  the 
fishermen,  a  burly  fellow,  quitted  his  hold  of 
the  cords,  and,  leaping  into  the  water,  floundered 
for  the  shore  and  disappeared. 

"  What  now?  "  said  the  soldier.  "  Do  they 
spy  and  seek  us?,  "  He  muttered  vacantly,  and 
glanced  again  at  his  spear -head,  and  shook  the 
haft  impatiently.  But  the  sunrise  would  not  be 
detached  from  it. 

Now  the  goatherd  ran  to  a  cleft  which  com- 
manded the  shore  below,  and,  glaring  a  moment, 
returned  swiftly,  his  face  alight. 

"  Rabboni,"  he  said  excitedly,  "it  is  the  man 
of  Nazareth  himself  come  back,  and  he  ascendeth 
the  hill  towards  us,  and  the  spell  will  be  removed 
from  me  so  that  I  shall  taste  fish  once  more." 

But  the  words  were  hardly  out  of  his  mouth 
when  the  soldier  seized  his  arm,  and,  dragging 
him  to  the  shelter  of  a  great  boulder  at  a  distance, 
forced  him  to  crouch  with  him  behind  it,  so 
that  they  might  see  without  being  seen.  And 
so  hidden,  they  were  aware  of  a  shape  that  came 
into  the  firelight,  and  it  was  white  like  a  spirit 
of  the  hills  and  waters,  and  it  stretched  its  hands 
above  the  embers,  so  that  they  leaped  again. 


206         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

And  the  goatherd  heard  the  soldier  mutter  in 
his  ear  : 

"  A  practical  man — you  say  you  are  a  prac- 
tical man  !  Now,  who  is  it  ?  " 

1  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  he  answered. 

But  the  soldier  looked  at  his  javelin  and  it  ran 
with  sunrise. 

'  That  cannot  be,"  he  said,  "  for  seven  days 
ago  I  opened  his  side  with  this  spear  as  he  hung 
upon  the  cross,  and  there  is  the  blood  to  testify 
to  it." 

"  I  know  nothing  about  that,"  said  the  goat- 
herd; "  my  palate  is  sufficient  evidence  for  me. 
Look  where  they  come  and  lay  their  fish  upon  my 
embers.  The  very  savour  of  their  cooking  tells 
me  I  can  taste  again.  It  is  Jesus,  sure  enough  !  " 


THE    BORGIA    DEATH 

'  THIS  is  the  house,  father,"  muttered  the  Bene- 
dictine . 

His  companion,  like  himself,  wore  the  black 
habit  of  the  Order,  and  his  cowl  so  shrouded  his 
face  that  little  of  that  was  visible  but  a  short 
white  beard  fringing  a  mouth  and  jaw  of  singular 
grimness. 

The  two  stood  before  the  door  of  a  common 
dwelling  situated  in  a  block  of  buildings  near 
the  Ponte  Sisto,  and  almost  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Castle  of  the  Capoferri.  It  was  a  June 
evening  of  the  year  1504,  and  already  the  seven 
hills  of  Rome  were  like  seven  burning  kilns. 
The  heat  radiated  from  them,  even  at  midnight, 
would  have  sufficed  a  reasonable  land  for  its 
summer. 

The  door  was  opened  to  the  low  knock  of  the 
friar  by  a  scared-looking  young  girl.  She  wore 
a  simple  dress  of  green  frieze,  the  bodice  of 

207 


208         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

which,  unlaced  to  the  heat,  had  slipped  about 
her  shoulders.  The  light  of  the  lamp  she  carried 
rounded  upon  her  full  lower  lip,  and  gave  a 
dusky  mystery  to  her  wide  animal  eyes.  The 
older  man,  regarding  the  child  a  moment,  raised 
his  hand  and  fondled  her  chin  and  neck,  deliber- 
ately, and  like  a  privileged  connoisseur. 

"  Balatrone's  daughter?  "  he  asked. 

The  girl  answered  "  Yes  "  with  a  motion  of 
her  lips.  Taking  him  for  the  prior  of  some  great 
community,  she  never  even  thought  of  resenting 
his  caress. 

'  It  may  count  to  thy  father  for  a  score  of 
indulgences,"  said  the  monk.  "  We  shall  see. 
Now  take  us  to  him." 

She  went  before,  and  they  followed  her  into 
a  little  stifling  chamber  looking  on  a  small  court- 
yard where  a  scrap  of  fountain  tinkled.  Tiny 
as  its  voice  was,  it  conveyed  a  thought  of  re- 
freshment to  the  sick  man  who  lay  on  a  couch 
against  the  wall  beside. 

The  face  of  this  man  already  bore  the  shadow 
of  coming  dissolution.  He  had  been  fat  once, 
and  so  recently  that  his  skin  had  had  no  time 
to  adapt  itself  to  the  waste  within,  but  hung  in 
folds  like  wrinkled  tripe.  His  eyes  had  a 


THE    BORGIA    DEATH  209 

haunted,  pathetic  look  in  them,  for  he  had  lived 
his  later  time  with  a  damning  secret  for  company, 
and  he  dreaded  unspeakably  the  mortal  moment 
which  should  find  him  still  unrelieved  of  its 
burden.  Wherefore  he  had  provisionally,  and 
with  a  reservation  in  favour  of  his  own  possible 
recovery,  confided  to  his  confessor  enough  of 
the  business  to  awaken  that  cleric's  lively  in- 
terest, and  to  send  him  off  in  search  of  one  more 
fitted,  by  virtue  of  his  canonical  rank  and 
authority,  to  accept  contrition  and  deliver  judg- 
ment on  a  momentous  matter.  The  two  lost  no 
time  in  preliminaries. 

'  This  is  one,  Balatrone,"  said  the  friar,  "  en- 
dowed with  the  highest  gift  for  absolution.  I 
am  about  to  make  known  to  him  the  substance 
of  the  report  you  have  committed  to  me." 

"  Bene,  bene"  said  the  sick  man,  nodding 
exhaustedly.  "  I  ask  the  good  father  to  purge 
my  soul." 

The  "  good  father  "  mentioned  had  seated 
himself  in  an  obscure  corner,  his  face  bowed  and 
concealed  by  his  hood.  The  other  monk  took 
a  parchment  from  his  bosom,  and  referred  to  it. 

"  These  are  the  depositions,"  he  said  softly, 
"  of  one  Andrea  Sfondrati,  late  page  to  his 

14 


210         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Holiness  Alexander  VI.  The  man  died  recently 
under  suspicion  of  poison,  and  the  document 
came  into  the  hands  of  Balatrone  here." 

"  I  stole  it  from  his  chamber,"  declared  the 
patient,  in  a  tremulous  but  resolved  voice,  "  after 
I  had  poisoned  him.  None  but  I  and  he  knew 
of  its  existence.  It  is  all  true.  No  alternative 
was  left  me." 

"  Continue,"  said  the  seated  monk  passion- 
lessly.  "  Continue,  brother.  So  far  this  implies 
nothing  beyond  your  province." 

The  Benedictine,  unperturbed,  unfolded  the 
parchment . 

'  The  statement,  Father,"  he  said,  "  covers 
the  night  of  his  late  Holiness's  mortal  sickness, 
which  in  a  few  hours  left  the  throne  of  St.  Peter 
vacant."  He  glanced  significantly  towards  the 
other,  who  silently  motioned  him  to  proceed. 
'  There  were  present  with  his  Holiness  on  that 
occasion,"  he  went  on,  "  his  son  the  Don  Cesare 
Borgia  and  his  Eminence  the  Cardinal  Adriano 
of  Corneto.  The  narrator  takes  up  the  tale  at 
the  moment  when  a  certain  dish  was  placed 
before  his  Eminence  during  the  feast  served 
privately  in  his  honour." 

He  shifted,  so  as  to  get  the  light  upon  the 


THE    BORGIA    DEATH  211 

document,   and  began  to  read  in  a  clear,   low 
voice  : 

'  We  all  knew  well  enough/  says  Sfondrati, 
'  what  was  going  to  happen .  When  I  took  the  dish 
from  Torelli  at  the  door,  I  thought  to  myself, 
"  Here  ensues  a  vacancy  in  the  Sacred  College." 
There  had  been  so  much  purring  and  fondling, 
such  solicitude  about  the  Cardinal's  health,  such 
brotherly  frankness,  such  plans  for  the  morrow. 
That  was  the  Borgia  way,  the  one  they  always 
followed  by  choice.  Though  they  might  cut 
throats  under  provocation,  to  take  a  man  by  the 
hand,  to  praise  and  flatter  and  applaud  him, 
to  caress  his  prosperous  fatness,  as  it  were,  while 
studying  in  his  face  the  working  of  the  poison 
they  had  already  insinuated  into  his  belly — that 
was  the  sport  of  sports  to  them.  And  this 
Cardinal  had  loggias  and  vineyards  and  much 
oil  and  corn.  He  was  a  wealthy  prince,  a 
succulent  mouthful,  and  it  was  his  turn  to  be 
swallowed.  "  How,"  I  thought,  "  can  any  one, 
not  a  credulous  ass,  be  brought  to  commit  him- 
self to  these  gloved  tigers  ?  Has  not  Corneto 
heard,  like  the  rest  of  us,  of  the  Orsini,  of 
Vitellozzo,  of  Oliverotto,  of  brother  Gandia  and 
brother-in-law  Biseglia,  of  Peroto,  the  Holy 


212 

Father's  little  favourite,  whose  wisand  was  split 
by  Cesare  as  he  clung  screaming  to  the  arms  of 
his  old  patron?  Has  he  not  heard  of  these  and 
a  hundred  others  ;  of  the  mysterious  illnesses, 
of  the  stabs  in  the  dark,  of  the  bodies  tipped 
into  the  Tiber,  of  that  charcoal-burner,  witness 
to  Gandia's  murder,  who  excused  himself  for 
not  having  reported  the  matter  to  the  Governor 
on  the  ground  that  such  affairs  had  grown  too 
common  o'  nights  to  excite  interest?  Has  he 
not  heard,  in  short,  of  these  Spaniards  their  little 
ways,  that  he  can  thus  voluntarily  venture  him- 
self within  reach  of  their  covetous  grip?  Or 
does  he  throw  up  the  game  in  despair,  and  yield 
his  money-bags  incontinent  to  the  Vatican  ex- 
chequer? " 

'  '  I  judged  his  Eminence  wrongly,  as  the 
sequel  will  show  ;  but  the  belief  was  in  me  at  the 
moment,  and  pretty  contemptuously,  that  the  man 
was  a  fool. 

"  '  Well,  I  took  the  dish,  I  say,  from  Torelli, 
and  Nicandro  took  it  from  me.  We  were  supping 
in  the  garden-house,  in  Apollo's  bower,  for  the 
month  was  August ;  and  Nicandro  was  our 
Ganymede  and  little  Lisetta  our  Hebe.  They 
made  a  pretty  couple,  and  may  have  shared 


THE    BORGIA    DEATH  213 

something  less  than  a  shirt  between  them. 
Nicandro  placed  the  dish  before  his  Eminence. 
It  was  confetti  of  creamed  fruit,  and  a  perfume 
like  ambrosia  rose  from  it.  I  had  never  seen 
the  handsome,  devilish  face  of  Don  Cesare  look 
more  gentle  and  ingratiatory  than  it  did  at  that 
moment.  Its  expression  put  to  rebuke  the  Holy 
Father's,  which  was  as  sick  and  flabby  as  a 
skinned  calf's.  The  old  devil  had  not  the  nerve 
of  his  whelp — that  is  the  truth.  The  dish  was 
placed  before  his  Eminence,  I  say,  and  its  fellow 
before  each  of  the  other  two.'  " 

"  He  was  the  very  maestro  of  confetti,  that 
cook,"  broke  out  the  sick  man  feebly  from  his 
couch.  "  His  designs  in  gilt  and  coloured  sugar 
were  sheer  masterpieces  !  " 

The  monk  glanced  dumbly  at  him  a  moment, 
then  continued  his  reading  : 

"  '  Lisette  hung  over  the  Cardinal,  with  the 
flagon  of  wine  in  her  hand.  Her  bosom  pressed 
his  neck  ;  she  laid  her  cheek  upon  his  bald  head, 
and,  so  standing,  filled  his  glass.  But  Corneto 
put  neither  his  hand  to  the  dish  nor  his  lips  to  the 
beaker.  Instead  he  rose,  and  so  suddenly  that 
he  bruised  the  child's  lips. 

"  '  "  Blood  !  "  said  Caesar  softly,  and  with  a 
smile.  "  That  is  a  harsh  retort  on  love,  Prince." 


214         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  Then,  in  one  instant,  I  recognised  that  I 
had  misjudged  his  Eminence,  that  he  knew  or 
guessed,  and  that  a  crisis  was  upon  us.  His 
eyes  were  like  black  glass  in  stone  ;  he  looked 
into  the  black,  excited  eyes  of  his  host.  The 
two  white,  black-eyed  faces,  the  one  awful,  the 
other  wet  and  piteous,  opposed  each  other. 

"  '  "  Is  it  your  will,  Borgia,  that  I  eat  of  this 
dish?  "  he  said. 

"  '  The  Pope  strove  to  reply,  and  no  word 
could  he  articulate.  But  his  son  answered  for 
him  :  "  What  distemper  is  this,  Corneto  ?  Come, 
rally  thee,  man,  nor  leave  the  feast  uncrowned. 
One  effort  more ;  see,  we  will  give  thee  the 
lead  !  " 

"  '  He  ate  himself,  and  made  his  father  eat. 
When  the  two  were  finished,  the  Cardinal 
addressed  the  Pope.  "  God  forgive  thee, 
Borgia,"  he  said,  "  and  prosper  thy  design  for 
all  its  worth."  And  he,  in  his  turn,  ate  of  his 
sweet,  and  flung  the  dish  from  him.  "  Con- 
summatum  est"  he  said.  "  I  have  my  peace  to 
make  with  Heaven.  I  crave  your  Holiness's 
permission  to  withdraw." 

"  '  Now  Don  Cesare  rose  laughing,  and  rally- 
ing their  guest  for  his  weak  stomach,  saw  him 


THE    BORGIA   DEATH  215 

for  a  distance  through  the  gardens  and  then 
himself  returned.  And  there  were  we,  the 
frightened  witnesses,  whispering  half  tearful  now 
the  thing  was  done,  yet  dreading  that  he  should 
see  and  resent  our  tremors. 

'  But  the  Pope  sat  staring  with  a  ghastly 
face  ;  and  Don  Cesare  sat  down  beside  him,  and 
the  two  fell  murmuring  together.  And  suddenly, 
in  one  moment,  his  Holiness  uttered  a  mortal 
cry  :  "  Corneto,  I  am  poisoned  !  He  hath  re- 
torted on  us  with  our  own  !  " 

'  It  was  true.  The  Cardinal,  well  foresee- 
ing his  fate,  had  prevailed,  by  bribes  and  prayers 
and  promises,  over  the  conscience  of  his  Holi- 
ness's  cook,  and  had  induced  the  man  to  serve 
to  his  masters  the  poison  intended  for  himself. 
The  Borgia  took  the  Borgia's  own  prescription, 
and  died  that  night  in  torture.  Caesar  hung 
between  hell  and  earth  awhile,  and  presently 
escaped.  This  is  all  true  as  I  record  it.'  ' 

The  monk  ceased  reading,  and  looked  towards 
the  couch.  For  a  little  no  sound  broke  the 
stillness  but  the  faint  gasping  of  the  patient  and 
the  noisome  droning  of  a  fly  about  the  room. 

"Balatrone?"   whispered   the   Benedictine. 

"  I  was  that  cook  !  "  cried  the  dying  man  in  a 
fearful  voice.  "  Sfondrati  read  my  secret,  and 


216 

recorded  it,  and  bled  me  with  it  till  he  ruined 
me.  I  had  to  poison  him  to  still  his  tongue 
and  secure  the  record." 

The  seated  monk  arose,  and  came  with  a  fierce 
stride  to  the  bed. 

"  Thou  hast  killed  a  Pope,"  he  said.  "  Yield 
up  the  secret  of  that  poison — the  Borgia  death." 

"  Absolve  me  first." 

"  None  but  a  Pope  can  do  that." 

'  Then  I  must  take  it  with  me  to  the  grave." 

"  Hark  ye,  fellow — I  am  Julius  ;  I  am  the 
Pope." 

"  It  is  his  Holiness  indeed,  Balatrone,"  cried 
the  friar. 

The  man  screamed  and  writhed. 

"  It  is  the  foam  of  swine,  poisoned  with  arsenic 
and  then  whipped  to  frenzy.  Absolve  me,  Holy 
Father,  absolve  me  !  " 

"  Ha  I  "  exclaimed  the  Pontiff,  in  the  voice 
of  a  long -covetous  man  satisfied. 

He  heard  a  choke  behind  him,  and  turned  to 
find  the  girl  close  by.  His  face  softened. 
"What,  little  Hebe,"  he  said.  "  Wouldst  like 
to  come  and  serve  the  wine  to  Papa  Julius  ? 
But,  wait." 

He  turned,  with  hand  uplifted,  to  give  the 
blessing  ;  but  Balatrone  was  dead. 


"DEAD    MAN'S    PLACK " 

ELFRIDA,  wife  of  Athelwold,  the  King's  favourite, 
and  daughter  and  heiress  to  Olgar  Earl  of 
Devonshire,  was  a  beauty  of  the  true  Helena 
complexion.  To  see  her,  for  most  men,  was 
to  covet ;  to  possess  her,  for  the  one,  was  to 
wear  a  crown  of  exquisite  thorns.  The  orchard 
needs  most  watching  when  the  fruit  is  ripe,  and 
Elfrida  hung  at  perpetual  ripeness,  maddening 
to  parched  lips  without.  The  keeper  of  this 
garden  of  sweet  things  might  hardly  enjoy  it 
for  his  fear  of  robbers.  And  the  worst  of  it 
was  that,  to  maintain  so  ravishing  a  possession 
in  its  perfection,  no  warning  as  to  its  own  irre- 
sistible witchery  must  be  so  much  as  hinted  to 
it,  lest  the  blue  innocence  of  two  of  the  most 
lovely  wondering  eyes  in  the  world  should  be 
impaired  thereby,  and  self-consciousness  usurp 
in  them  the  place  of  naivete .  Gazing  into  those 
artless  depths,  if  one  had  the  privilege,  one 


217 


218         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

presently  recognised  in  their  little  floating  motes 
and  shadows  the  souls  of  the  many  who  had 
drowned  themselves  therein.  Was  Elfrida  con- 
scious of  the  tragic  secrets  hidden  away  under 
those  azure  waters?  Her  husband  at  least 
thought  her  the  most  loving,  the  most  unsophisti- 
cated, the  most  trustworthy  of  wives  ;  and  if 
the  wish  was  very  particularly  the  father  to  the 
thought,  the  thought  was  none  the  less  for  that 
sincere . 

One  noon  the  young  wife  sat,  yawning  and  a 
little  ennuye,  in  her  bower  of  the  Thanage 
house  by  Harewood  Forest  in  Hampshire. 
Athelwold  was  with  the  Court  at  Winchester, 
and  time  hung  heavy  on  her  hands.  She  leaned 
back  in  her  seat,  listlessly  conning  the  crumpled 
figure  of  Daukin,  the  Earl's  clerk  or  bookes- 
man,  as  he  squatted  on  his  stool  monotonously 
mouthing  the  Canons  of  Eusebius  from  an  illu- 
minated manuscript— the  light  literature  of 
England  when  Dunstan  was  Primate.  Like 
many  ethereal  women,  Elfrida  found  a  fascina- 
tion in  the  deformed  and  grotesque.  She  petted 
little  harsh  Daukin  ;  and  he,  while  he  took  his 
full  sardonic  change  of  the  licence  allowed  him, 
for  ever  in  spirit  kissed  the  beautiful  feet  that 


"DEAD    MAN'S    PLACK "  219 

trampled  on  his  soul.  So,  he  thought,  must  feel 
the  writhing,  adoring,  hopeless  serpent  under 
Mary's  feet  in  the  chapel. 

She  broke  in  upon  his  reading,  suddenly  and 
irrelevantly. 

'  Will  our  lord  return  this  night,  think  you, 
Master  Bookesman  ?  " 

The  dwarf,  closing  the  manuscript,  accepted 
grimly  the  moral  of  his  own  eloquence. 

"  Will  a  star  shoot  out  of  the  east?  "  he  said. 
"  I'll  tell  thee  when  the  night  hath  come  and 
gone." 

"  Nay,  say  that  you  think  he  will — say  it, 
say  it  !  " 

"  The  King  loves  the  Earl,  lady,  and  thou 
desirest  him.  Which  passion  shall  pull  the 
stronger?  " 

"  Do  not  /  love  him,  thou  toad?  " 

"  Well,  then,  pull,  and  in  double  harness  ;  so, 
belike,  the  King,  that  holds  to  him,  shall  be 
drawn  too." 

"  I  do  not  desire  the  King." 

"  God  give  him  strength  to  bear  it  !  " 

She  laughed  musically :  "  Insolent  !  "  and  so 
fell  into  thought. 

"  Thou  knowest,  Daukin,"  she  said  presently, 


220         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  I  have  never  been  to  Court — nor  desired  it 
indeed.  Of  what  complexion  is  the  King?  " 

"Hot." 

'  Is  he  not  very  young?  " 

"  -He  hath  learned  to  lisp  and  help  himself 
to  what  he  wants.  The  young  husbands  in  his 
suite  observe  discretion." 

"  Poor  husbands  !  O,  Daukin,  O,  waly  me, 
how  the  day  loiters  !  If  my  love  could  draw 
so  strong,  I'd  e'en  take  the  worser  for  the  better's 
sake." 

"Which  first?" 

"  Peace,  fool  1  " 

"  Well,  the  comfort  is  the  King's  heard  pf 
thee,  and  heard  enough  to  satisfy  him,  it  seems. 
He'll  not  trouble  thee  with  a  visit." 

"  He  has  not  heard." 

"  What !  Did  he  not  use  his  influence  with 
the  Earl  thy  father  to  promote  this  match?  " 

"  Aye,  on  grounds  of  policy  and  fortune. 
Thank  Heaven  I  am  not  beautiful  I  " 

"  It  listens  and  will  record." 

She  sighed  :  "  Alack,  a  doleful  day  !  O,  I 
wish  my  lord  would  come  !  " 

A  bugle  sounding  without  answered  on  her 
word.  There  was  a  thud  of  racing  hoofs,  & 


"DEAD    MAN'S    FLACK"  221 

sudden  turmoil  in  the  court,  a  mingling  of  many 
voices,  servile  or  peremptory.  Elfrida  rose 
ecstatic,  clasping  her  hands. 

Tis  he  himself  !  "  she  cried,  and  advancing, 
as  the  curtain  parted,  almost  ran  into  the  arms 
of  her  husband  Athelwold. 

'He  was  tall,  sinewy,  pale-haired  and  lashed. 
His  tunic  of  fine  cramasie  was  torn,  his  gold 
garters  trailed ;  he  looked  like  a  man  in  the 
last  extreme  of  haste  and  agitation.  He  took 
the  wondering  beauty  in  his  arms,  and  gazed 
into  her  face,  searchingly,  passionately. 

'  Wife,"  he  said,  "  I  have  something  of  wild 
urgency  for  thy  ear.  I  must  speak  it  ere  my 
blood  cools.  Tell  me  that  thy  heart  is  mine?  " 

"  Athelwold  !      What   questions  I  " 

"  Tell  it,  tell  it  !  " 

"  Am  I  not  thy  wife?  " 

"  Priests'  business.     I  speak  of  love." 

"  Why,  did  I  not  swear  to  love  thee  ?  " 

"  Elfrida,  thy  love's  my  heaven  ;  without  it — 
hell.  Hear  my  confession.  There's  no  moment 
to  lose." 

'  Thou  strange  husband  !  " 

'  When  I  first  saw  thee  in  thy  father's  house 
I  saw  my  destiny.  Such  immortal  beauty,  child 


222         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

—God,  I  was  just  man  !  Forgive  the  mad 
cunning  jealousy  that  would  deceive  thee  even 
in  thyself.  '  I  must  possess/  I  thought,  '  this 
immortal  thing  or  die.'  I  bid  for  thy  rank,  thy 
fortune,  in  pretence,  the  King  upholding  my  suit. 
His  interest  turned  the  scale,  and  we  were  wed. 
Elfrida,  wife,  dear  love — I  wronged  the  King 
in  all ;  I  was  no  more  at  first  than  his  deputy 
for  thy  hand." 

A  little  spot  of  white  had  come  to  her  cheek  ; 
but  she  smiled  on  him,  not  stirring. 

"  How,  Athelwold  ?  " 

"  I  must  confess  it,"  he  said.  "  Edgar  had 
heard  speak  of  this  lovely  Devon  rose ;  and, 
toying,  only  half-inclined,  with  a  thought  of 
matrimony,  sent  me,  on  some  feigned  mission, 
to  discover  if  the  lady's  beauty  really  matched 
her  nobility — in  which  case " 

"Yes,  Athelwold?" 

He  held  her  convulsively.  "  O,  forgive  me, 
Elfrida,  that  I  made  thee  Queen  of  love,  not 
England  !  Thy  wealth,  thy  name,  I  told  him, 
were  the  charms  that  gilded  servile  eyes- 
enough,  perhaps,  for  such  as  I,  but  for  him, 
lacking  the  first  and  best  of  recommendations. 
And  he  believed  me,  and  yielded  thee  to  me. 


"DEAD    MAN'S    PLACK  "  223 

And  now,  and  now  " — he  held  her  from  him, 
his  chest  heaving,  his  voice  breaking — "  my  sin 
hath  found  me  out — some  one  hath  betrayed  me 
— and  he  is  coming  in  person  to  put  my  report 
to  the  proof.  Feigning  to  prepare  for  his  visit, 
I  fled  but  in  time  to  forestall  him  by  a  few  hours . 
Ah,  love  !  all  is  lost  unless  thou  lovest  me." 

She  answered  quite  softly  :  "  What  am  I  to 
do,  Athelwold?" 

"  Do,  be,  anything  but  Elfrida.  Dress 
slovenly,  speak  rudely,  soil  and  discredit  thine 
own  perfection." 

"  Substitute  another  for  thy  lady." 

They  both  started,  and  fell  apart.  The  dwarf, 
forgotten  by  the  one,  unnoticed  by  the  other, 
had  risen  from  his  stool.  The  Thane's  hand 
whipped  furiously  to  his  sword-hilt. 

"  Nay,"  said  the  girl,  interposing — "  Daukin 
is  imy  dog  ;  Daukin  loves  me ;  Daukin  shall 
speak." 

"  Let  the  Thane,"  said  the  dwarf,  cool  and 
caustic,  "  seek  his  couch  on  pretence  of  fever, 
and  let  Alse,  the  cookmaid,  receive  the  King. 
We  be  all  devoted  servants  of  our  house.  A 
little  persuasion,  a  little  guile,  and  the  thing  is 
carried." 


224         HISTORICAL   VIGNETTES 

"  I  will  go  instruct  the  wench,"  said  Elfrida 
hurriedly. 

She  seemed  charmed  with  the  idea.  She 
drove  her  lord  to  his  hiding,  with  a  peremptory 
laughing  injunction  that  he  was  not  to  issue 
therefrom  until  summoned  by  herself ;  she  re- 
fused to  linger  a  moment  by  his  side  in  her 
excitement.  Her  eyes  had  never  looked  so 
heavenly-bright  and  blue. 

At  eve  came  the  King,  with  a  little  brilliant 
retinue . 

But  Alse  did  not  receive  him.  Instead  there 
advanced  and  knelt  at  his  feet  one  of  the  most 
radiant  young  beauties  his  eyes  had  ever 
encountered.  The  violet  Saxon  hood  fell  back 
from  her  face  as  she  raised  it,  revealing  a  sun 
of  little  curls  bound  by  a  golden  fillet.  The 
slender  lifted  hands,  the  bright  parted  lips,  most 
of  all  the  eyes,  blue  as  lazulite  and  wide  with 
innocence,  seemed  all  as  if  posed  for  a  picture 
of  Love's  ecstasy.  The  King,  young,  and  lustful, 
and  handsome,  with  his  strong,  clean-cut  face, 
stood  the  speechless  one. 

"  Welcome,  lord  King,"  she  said  in  a  half- 
articulate  voice,  like  a  child  murmuring  a  lesson. 

He  raised  and  kissed  her.     "  Welcome,  wife 


"DEAD    MAN'S    PLACK "  225 

of  Athelwold  !  "  he  said,  and  let  out  a  sigh  like 
a  man  restored  from  drowning. 

But  apart  stood  the  dwarf,  amazed  and 
sorrowful . 

"  She  hath  deceived  us,"  he  thought.  "  What 
is  to  be  the  end?  " 

That  night  was  spent  in  feasting ;  and  in  the 
morning  came  Elfrida  to  her  husband's  couch. 
Worn  with  fatigue  and  anxiety — since  she  had 
given  orders  that  none  was  to  approach  him! — 
he  had  fallen  asleep  at  last. 

"  Up,  up,  my  Thane  !  "  she  cried.  "  The  King 
is  bent  on  hunting,  and  awaits  thee  in  the  court. 
Say  nothing.  All  goes  well." 

She  would  not  linger,  lest,  as  she  whispered, 
she  should  risk  discovery ;  but,  running  from 
him,  sought  her  bower.  There  listening,  a  hand 
upon  her  bosom,  she  heard  the  chase  ride  forth ; 
and  presently  the  dwarf  stole  in  to  her. 

"  Thou  hast  done  it,"  he  said.  "  The  King 
will  kill  him." 

She  began  :    "  Dog  !     Thou  darest "  but, 

checking  herself,  put  her  hands  a  moment  to 
her  face,  then  went  up  and  down,  up  and  down, 
like  one  distracted. 

"  Well,  he  wronged  the  King,"  said  Daukin. 

15 


226         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

She  stopped  before  him,  and  his  soul  struggled 
against  the  fascination  of  the  blue  waters. 

"  What  was  that  to  his  wrong  of  me  ?  "  she 
said  passionately ;  and,  as  he  gazed,  he  saw 
the  waters  brim.  "  O,  Daukin  !  "  she  wept; 
"  cannot  you,  understand  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  he  said. 

"  And  love  me  still?  " 

"  I  can  love  the  truth,"  he  said,  with  a  heart- 
broken sigh.  "  I  have  found  it  at  last  in  the 
depths  I  have  studied  so  long." 

When  the  King  returned,  the  sternness  of  his 
white  face  belied  his  uttered  commiseration. 
The  Thane,  he  told  his  lady,  had  stumbled  on 
his  own  boar-spear,  and  met  with  a  mortal  hurt. 

"  Long  live  the  Queen  !  "  said  Daukin. 

Edgar  started,  and  his  hand  went  to  his 
dagger.  Elfrida  stumbled  forward. 

"  No,"  she  said,  in  a  weak  voice,  "it  is  my 
dog,  lord  King.  I  will  not  have  him  killed 
because  he  barks." 


WHEN  Carrier,  commissioned  by  Heraut  Sey- 
chelles, acting  on  behalf  of  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety  in  Paris,  to  purge  Nantes,  arrived 
in  that  town,  he  found  all  ready  to  his  hand  a 
Revolutionary  Committee  such  as  his  heart,  or 
whatever  deformity  represented  that  organ,  could 
most  desire.  There  were  Goullin,  Grandmaison, 
Chaux,  Jolly,  Perrochaux,  and  a  score  others, 
all  "  intrepid  "  Mountain  men,  and  all  scoundrels 
of  the  most  atrocious  antecedents.  His  task  was 
consequently  a  simple  one.  He  had  merely  to 
produce  his  credentials  and  authorise  his  instru- 
ments, and  the  depopulating  process  started,  as 
it  were,  automatically.  One  need  not  recapitu- 
late, for  the  thousandth  time,  a  selection  from 
the  infernal  wickednesses  perpetrated  by  these 
fiends.  Such  were  being  enacted,  in  more  or 
less  degree,  in  a  hundred  other  districts  of  the 
tortured  land,  and  these  were  noteworthy  in 


227 


228         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

nothing  but  their  multitude.  What  was  note- 
worthy, however,  was  the  fact  that  Nantes  pro- 
duced the  solitary  instance — so  far  as  one  may 
gather  throughout  the  entire  Revolution— of  a 
butchering  devil  succumbing  to  a  sense  of  his 
own  enormities.  But,  even  so,  there  was  to  be 
observed  a  particular  judgment  in  the  case. 

Carrier's  theories  of  political  economy  were 
simplicity  itself.  The  population  of  France, 
he  declared,  was  out  of  all  proportion  with  the 
amount  of  food  the  land  could  produce ;  where- 
fore he  proposed,  for  his  individual  part,  to  pare 
down  the  population  until  it  corresponded  with 
the  yield.  But  this  decimating  process  was 
fatiguing,  and  called  for  some  compensation.  It 
was  only  decent  that  the  killers  should  be 
allowed  to  extract  what  profit  and  enjoyment 
they  could  from  their  task.  And,  in  fact,  they 
enjoyed  a  glut,  which  was  the  reason  why  a 
good  many  personable  women,  not  of  the  first 
order  of  attractiveness,  were  allowed  to  escape 
— to  the  scaffold,  or  to  the  drownings. 

Amongst  these  came  one  day  to  the  Place 
du  Buffay,  where  the  guillotine  was  erected,  a 
mother  and  her  five  daughters  and  their  little 
maid,  all,  according  to  a  chronicler,  jeunes  et 


THE    EXECUTIONER    OF    NANTES    229 

belles,  condamnees  sans  jugement.  There  was  a 
good  batch  that  noon,  and  the  seven  were  kept 
waiting  for  a  long  half -hour  at  the  foot  of  the 
scaffold  before  their  turn  came.  The  populace 
was  not  yet  so  hardened  but  that  it  could 
witness  this  tragedy  with  emotion.  "  Ah,  the 
poor  infants  !  But  what  is  their  crime  ?  " 
"  'Hush  !  they  were  taken  with  arms  in  their 
hands  !  "  "  My  God  !  but  it  is  outrageous  ! 
Are  knitting-needles  arms?  "  "  I  know  not,  I. 
It  is  Carrier  who  decides." 

The  six  encouraged  one  another  amidst  tears 
and  embraces .  Most  of  all  they  sought  to  fortify 
the  little  bonne,  who,  a  mere  large-eyed  child, 
stood  .quite  stunned  with  the  turn  affairs  had 
taken.  When  at  length  the  period  came  to  their 
agony,  they  mounted  the  steps  in  succession, 
faltering  to  one  another  sweet  hymns  of  con- 
solation, their  voices  fading  away  one  by  one 
like  the  lights  in  Tenebrae.  The  spectators  were 
dissolved  in  tears  ;  in  the  midst  of  a  weeping* 
silence  the  rush  and  thud  of  the  axe  was  the 
only  sound  audible.  Stolidly,  monotonously, 
Jules  Garreau,  the  executioner,  a  powerful, 
black -bearded  man,  sliced  off  the  heads  as  they 
came  through  the  "  little  window."  He  might 


230         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

have  been  cutting  chaff  for  any  concern  he 
showed. 

The  little  maid  came  last.  She  understood 
things  least  of  all  at  that  moment,  and  only  cried 
like  a  child  when  the  assistants  jerked  her 
roughly  down  on  the  board  and  slid  her  under 
the  yoke.  And  then,  in  the  very  instant  that 
Garreau  mechanically  touched  off  the  knife,  the 
man  was  seen  to  stagger  and  fall  back,  his  hands 
flung  to  his  face. 

He  died  the  next  day  in  a  raving  delirium. 
"  It  is  no  wonder,"  whispered  the  less  inhumane 
of  those  who  had  witnessed  the  execution.  "  The 
pity  of  it  would  have  killed  a  wolf's  heart." 

That  was  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  of  the 
truth.  The  full  explanation  was  not  given  until 
years  afterwards,  when  the  story  was  communi- 
cated to  a  priest  to  whom  one  of  Garreau's 
assistants  came  to  unburden  himself.  He  knew 
all  about  the  man  and  the  reason  for  his  death. 
It  had  been  actually  due,  he  declared,  to  an  in- 
stantaneous realisation  of  the  terrific  part  he  was 
playing,  and  of  the  mortal  hazards  he  had  invited 
in  lending  himself  to  it.  In  that  moment  he 
had  known  his  soul  as  surely  lost  as  if  he  had 
heard  God's  voice  in  his  ear,  and  the  shock  had 


THE    EXECUTIONER    OF    NANTES     231 

killed  him.  But  it  will  be  well  to  give  the  story 
in  the  narrator's  own  words  : 

"  I  had  known  this  Garreau  since  we  were 
young  men  together.  We  were  in  the  same 
office,  a  wine  merchant's,  in  the  Isle  Feydeau. 
Garreau  was  a  very  handsome  fellow,  but  as 
headstrong  as  the  devil .  He  had  a  great  tenacity 
of  purpose,  and  when  once  he  had  set  his  heart 
on  a  thing,  he  would  pursue  it,  as  a  weasel 
follows  a  rabbit,  until  he  could  set  his  teeth 
in  its  neck.  We  had  no  .quarrel  with  the  existing 
order,  and  our  lives  were,  for  our  position, 
prosperous  and  content.  For  my  part,  I  was 
always  a  slave  to  the  stronger  will  of  my 
comrade . 

"  We  were  at  that  time  good  children  of  the 
Church,  which  was  indeed  our  misfortune,  for 
the  change  in  us  dated  from  the  moment  pf 
Garreau's  return  from  a  week's  retreat  in  the 
monastery  of  St.  Pierre  de  la  Roche.  He  had 
acquired  therein  something  other  than  the 
religious  serenity  he  had  gone  to  seek,  had 
meditated  a  passion  remote  from  that  of  the 
Testament.  It  happened  in  this  way. 

"  Attached  to  the  monastery  was  the  Convent 
of  the  Bon  Secours,  whose  sisters  washed  the 


232         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

linen  of  the  ghostly  fathers.  To  one  of  these 
sisters,  a  beautiful  neophyte,  Jules  found  him- 
self instantly  attracted.  His  interest  ripened  into 
desire,  and  his  desire  into  a  devouring  passion. 
From  that  moment  all  was  decided.  He  never 
rested  until  he  had  secured  its  object  to  himself. 

"  He  would  have  married  the  lovely  apostate, 
but  the  Church  refused  to  sanction  their  union. 
It  was  that  refusal  which  first  inspired  his 
recusancy,  and  in  consequence  mine.  I  admired 
and  looked  up  to  him  in  all  things.  A  child, 
a  girl,  was  born  to  the  thus  ostracised  pair,  and 
it  was  remarked  that  a  little  torn  heart, 
emblematic  of  her  birthright  of  sin,  was  printed 
on  the  innocent's  neck  under  her  hair.  It  was 
the  rending  of  the  Sacred  Heart  which  she  was 
thus  made  to  symbolise  in  her  birth. 

"  But  Garreau  loved  her,  and  far  more  than 
her  mother  did.  If  he  had  been  great,  aristo- 
cratic, he  would  have  experienced  no  difficulty 
in  sheltering  his  mistress  from  slander  and 
persecution  ;  but  he  was  neither,  and  he  could 
give  her  little  of  the  protection  that  she  craved. 
So  in  the  end  she  sought  and  found  it  in  the 
arms  of  the  Comte  de  Chasles,  son  of  a  marquis, 
who  carried  her  off  to  Paris.  It  was  then  that 


THE    EXECUTIONER    OF    NANTES     233 

Jules  and  I  attached  ourselves  to  the  party  of 
the  advanced  thinkers. 

"  He  followed  the  seducer,  and  for  years  I 
lost  sight  of  him.  In  the  meanwhile  all  that 
I  knew  of  his  affairs  was  that  the  infant  had 
been  claimed  as  their  perquisite  by  the  sisters 
of  the  Bon  Secours,  and  that  they  were  training 
her,  ignorant  of  her  parentage,  to  service.  Then, 
in  a  clap,  came  the  Revolution. 

"  All  society  was  disintegrated  in  that  shock. 
Institutions  ceased  to  exist  and  order  resolved 
itself  into  chaos.  The  religious  houses  were  the 
first  to  suffer.  The  hour  of  the  great  retribu- 
tion had  struck,  and  I  sided  with  the  extremists. 
And  presently  arrived  Carrier. 

'*  I  was  out  of  employment,  as  who  was  not? 
The  beneficent  Republic  provided  idleness  for 
us  all ;  but,  alas  !  idleness  begot  no  bread .  At 
this  juncture  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  called 
for  candidates  for  the  post  of  executioner.  It 
was  their  purpose  to  strip  the  office  of  prejudice, 
and  exalt  it  to  a  State  dignity.  This  headsman 
was  to  be  entitled  for  the  future  the  People's 
Avenger . 

"  There  were  many  applicants,  and  among 
them  came  one  whom  I  had  difficulty  in  recog- 


234         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

nising  at  first  for  my  old  friend  and  leader  Jules 
Garreau.  It  was  thirteen  years  since  we  had 
met.  Most  of  that  time  he  had  spent  in  the 
prison  of  la  Force  in  Paris,  whither  he  had  been 
conveyed  on  a  process  for  debt  ingeniously 
devised  against  him  by  the  Comte  de  Chasles. 
When  released  at  length  by  the  Revolution,  he 
went,  like  that  weasel  before -mentioned,  straight 
for  the  neck  of  his  enemy.  It  was  at  the  Abbaye 
that  he  found  him,  and  he  took  what  revenge 
he  could  for  that  long  term  of  suffering  out  of 
the  September  massacres.  Afterwards  he  drank 
blood  awhile  in  Paris,  and  then  came  on  to  his 
native  town  to  surfeit  his  hatred  on  the  social 
order  which  had  been  responsible  for  his  ruin. 
He  was  by  then  rabid  among  the  rabid.  His 
deadly  sense  of  wrong  had  killed  whatever  spirit 
of  humanity  had  once  existed  within  him.  His 
only  desire  was  to  kill,  and  kill,  and  yet  kill. 
This  post  offered  him  such  an  opportunity  for 
the  satisfaction  of  his  lust  as  could  be  found 
nowhere  else,  and  he  applied  for  it.  He  was 
elected  unanimously  and  with  enthusiasm  by  the 
National  Representatives.  All  lesser  candidates, 
among  whom  I  figured,  waived  their  claims  in 
view  of  his,  which  were  irresistible.  But  he 


THE    EXECUTIONER    OF    NANTES    235 

made  me  his  assistant,  and  I  resumed  my  natural 
position  of  subordinate  to  him. 

'  Jules  lacked  from  that  moment  no  food  to 
satiate  his  vengeance  ;  and  yet  it  hungered  per- 
petually. He  was  a  dark,  powerful  man,  wholly 
inexorable,  yet  in  seeming  more  stern  than 
wrathful.  He  appeared  the  Avatar  of  sans- 
culottism,  a  soulless,  sightless  idol,  to  whom 
human  flesh  had  to  be  sacrificed.  Of  his  child, 
the  pledge  of  that  lost  passion,  he  never  seemed 
to  think.  Indeed,  in  the  utter  annihilation  of 
the  religious  houses  which  had  occurred  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  discover  whether  she 
lived  or  were  dead.  And  perhaps  even,  one 
might  assume,  he  did  not  care.  His  soul  was 
by  now  delivered  completely  over  to  the  one 
lust  of  destruction. 

"  On  the  day  of  the  execution  of  the  Marce 
family  we  wrought  consciously  in  an  unsympa- 
thetic atmosphere.  It  is  so  sometimes  on  that 
platform  of  the  guillotine,  as  on  the  stage,  when 
the  actor  is  aware,  he  does  not  know  why,  of  an 
antagonistic  presence  in  the  house.  One  plays 
then  with  caution  and  deprecation,  fearing  to 
give  offence .  I  was  very  sensitive  to  a  throbbing 
in  the  popular  pulse ;  but,  as  for  Jules,  he 


236         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

showed  no  more  sign  of  feeling  than  was  his 
wont.  Indeed,  I  observed  even  an  increased 
callousness  in  the  way  in  which,  noting  that  the 
heads  were  seven,  he  ticked  off  each  one  as  it 
fell  with  a  day  from  the  little  nursery  proverb 
uttered  sub  voce,  as  thus  : 

'  Monday,  fair  of  face ;  Tuesday,  full  of 
grace ;  Wednesday,  full  of  woe ;  Thursday,  far 
to  go ;  Friday,  loving  and  giving ;  Saturday, 
work  for  a  living  ;  Sunday ' 

"  With  the  word  on  his  lips,  and  his  hand  in 
the  very  act  of  touching  off  the  bolt,  he  sud- 
denly paled  and  staggered.  I  ran  to  catch  him, 
and  looked  straight  into  the  face  of  one  that 
was  damned. 

"  It  was  the  last  head,  and  we  conveyed 
Garreau  to  his  lodging.  He  was  by  then  in  a 
raving  fever,  from  which  he  never  recovered. 
But  in  one  of  the  few  lucid  intervals  that  came 
to  him  he  recognised  me,  and,  catching  at  my 
hand,  whispered  in  a  voice,  whose  exquisite 
horror  I  shall  never  forget,  the  secret  of  his 
awakening. 

"  In  the  very  moment  that  his  fingers  released 
the  knife,  he  had  caught  sight  of  a  little  torn 
heart  printed  on  the  neck  beneath  him." 


THE    LORD    TREASURER 

"  PHINEAS,"  said  the  Lord  Treasurer—"  my 
breeches  !  " 

The  attendant,  stooping  to  the  august  legs, 
reverentially  relieved  them  of  their  small-clothes, 
and  his  lordship  stood  up  in  his  shirt  with  his 
back  to  the  fire.  Even  so  denuded,  he  could 
never  have  conceived  himself  as  anything  less 
than  a  hero  to  his  valet — no,  not  when,  with 
a  comfortable  rearward  shrug  of  his  shoulders, 
he  lifted  the  veil  of  his  unspeakableness  to  the 
gratifying  warmth. 

"  Let  me  see,  Phineas,"  said  the  Lord 
Treasurer.  "  To-morrow  is  Wednesday — the 
black  velvet  with  the  plain  falling  band,  is  it 
not?  Very  well.  Empty  that  pocket  of  its 
papers,  Phineas ." 

"Yes,  my  lord." 

Sir  Richard  Weston,  Baron  of  Exchequer  and 
Lord  High  Treasurer  to  his  Majesty  King 

237 


238         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Charles  I.,  was  disrobing  for  the  night  in  his 
official  residence  off  Chancellor's  or  Chancery 
Lane.  He  was  a  man  of  inflexible  routine,  who 
changed  his  raiment,  parcelled  out  his  duties, 
and  pigeon-holed  his  correspondence  with  an  un- 
swerving regularity  from  which  nothing  could 
ever  make  him  deviate  but  a  bribe.  He  had  a 
suit  of  clothes  for  Monday,  a  suit  for  Wednesday, 
another  for  Friday,  and  so  on — a  change  on  every 
third  day ;  and  in  the  doublet  of  each  suit  was 
a  little  pocket  below  the  waist,  into  which  it 
was  his  custom  to  slip  all  memoranda  of  affairs 
requiring  his  early  attention.  This  pocket  it 
was  the  valet's  duty  to  explore  upon  every 
occasion  of  exchange  into  fresh  habiliments. 

Now,  system  has  this  drawback,  that  it  entices 
those  who  practise  it  into  a  confidence  in  their 
inability  to  err,  which  is  in  itself  an  error. 
Pigeon-holes  are  useful  things,  if  one  is  con- 
vinced that  every  article  in  them  is  docketed 
under  its  obvious  letter.  But,  alas  !  in  actual 
fact  the  short  cut  too  often  proves  itself  the 
longest  way  round,  and  the  pigeon  has  an 
amazing  way  of  hiding  in  the  unexpected  com- 
partment. He  may  fail  to  answer  to  his  own 
name  or  his  firm's,  and  leave  one  in  the  last 


THE    LORD    TREASURER         239 

resort  only  his  subject  or  his  business  by  which 
to  trace  him — if,  indeed,  one  can  identify  either 
under  a  capital  letter.  We  have  known  an 
orderly  man  to  tear  the  heart  out  of  a  nest  of 
pigeon-holes  from  "  B  "  to  "  Z,"  only  at  length 
to  find  what  he  sought  under  "  Anonymous." 
Yet  he  remained  no  less  convinced  than  the 
Treasurer  that  he  had  eliminated  confusion  from 
his  category  of  affairs.  System,  in  short,  may 
provide  against  everything  but  the  bad  memory 
which  most  trusts  to  it. 

Sir  Richard,  pleasantly  conscious  of  his  calves 
and  upwards,  reared  himself  on  his  toes  and 
yawned  and  sank  down  again. 

"Is  aught  there,  varlet?"  he  demanded. 
"  Bring  me  whatsoever  it  containeth." 

The  man  laid  down  the  discarded  doublet. 

"  Naught,  my  lord,"  he  said,  "  but  a  single 
scrap  of  paper." 

"  Give  it  me." 

The  servant  crossed  the  room,  and  presented 
the  memorandum  with  an  obeisance .  The  master 
accepted  it,  glanced  down,  and  stood  suddenly 
rigid. 

"  Remember  Ccesar!  " 

That  was  all — just  those  two  words,   written 


240         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

bold  in  ink  in  an  unknown  hand.  "  Remember 
Caesar  !  " 

Sir  Richard  was  holding  the  paper  in  his 
right  hand ;  dropping  the  veil,  he  brought  his 
left  to  the  front  and  stood  staring  in  a  sort  of 
stupor.  A  consciousness  as  of  chill,  as  of  a 
sense  of  warmth  and  security  suddenly  and 
shockingly  withdrawn,  tingled  through  his  veins. 
It  was  succeeded  by  a  faint  thrill  of  grievance 
or  self-pity.  He  had  been  so  exceedingly  com- 
fortable and  happy  a  moment  ago. 

"  Remember  Caesar  !  " — just  those  two  words, 
no  more,  but  how  voluminous  in  terrific  import ! 
"  Remember  Caesar  1  "  Remember  the  retribu- 
tion that  always  waited  on  "  vaulting  ambition." 
A  vision  of  a  vast  Senate-Hall,  of  a  throng  of 
passionate  figures  holding  aloft  blood-stained 
daggers,  of  a  silent,  prostrate  form  in  their  midst, 
rose  before  him.  "  Remember  Caesar  1  "  Re- 
member Caesar's  fate  :  remember  what  came  to 
befall  the  greatest  soldier,  statesman,  jurist  of 
his  time — possibly  of  all  time. 

A  certain  flattery  in  the  analogy  for  an  instant 
restored  the  colour  to  Sir  Richard's  cheek. 
Perhaps  the  comparison  was  not  so  extravagant 
a  one  after  all.  The  position  of  Lord  Treasurer 


THE    LORD    TREASURER         241 

was  so  exalted,  that,  looking  down  from  it, 
all  lesser  offices  and  all  lesser  men  appeared 
dwarfed.  It  needed  surely  a  stupendous  intel- 
lect to  preserve  its  equilibrium  at  that  altitude. 
And  yet,  such  the  height,  such  the  fall.  The 
Treasurer's  momentary  heroics  came  down  with 
an  anticipatory  thwack  which  left  him  gasping. 

If  he  could  only  avoid  Caesar's  fate  while 
admitting  the  soft  analogy !  The  illustrious 
Imperator  had  also,  if  he  remembered  rightly, 
received  his  warning,  and  had  ignored  it.  To 
ape  the  foolhardinesses  of  the  great  was  surely 
not  to  justify  one's  relation  to  them  in  the  best 
sense. 

A  shrill  wind  blew  upon  the  casement.  Its 
voice  had  but  now  awakened  a  snug  response 
in  the  Treasurer's  breast.  All  in  a  moment  it 
spoke  to  him  of  the  near  approach  of  the  Idesi 
of  March,  and  he  shivered  and  dropped  the 
paper  to  the  floor. 

"  Phineas,"  he  said  in  an  agitated  voice, 
"  Phineas  1  How  came  that  into  my  pocket?  " 

The  valet,  busy  about  his  affairs,  approached 
deferentially  but  curiously,  and,  at  a  sign  from 
his  master,  lifted  and  examined  the  billet,  and 
shook  his  head. 

16 


242         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"You  don't  know?" 

"  No,  indeed,  my  lord." 

'  How  do  you  read  it,  man?  How  do  you 
read  it?" 

Phineas  scratched  his  poll,  and  grinned  and 
was  silent. 

'  You  are  just  an  intolerable  ass,"  cried  his 
master.  He  danced  in  his  excitement.  His 
dignity  was  all  gone ;  he  was  simply  a  man 
in  a  shirt.  "  Fetch  master  secretary  !  "  he  cried. 
"  Fetch  master  comptroller  !  Rouse  the  house- 
hold, and  warn  the  porter  at  the  gate  !  Send 
every  one  in  to  me,  here  and  at  once." 

The  valet  hesitated. 

"Do  you  hear?"  shouted  Sir  Richard. 
"  Why  do  you  wait?  " 

'  It  doesn't  come  down  to  your  knees,  my 
lord,"  said  Phineas. 

The  Treasurer  leaped  to  a  press  and  tore  out  a 
robe.  "  Go  !  "  he  screamed  over  his  shoulder. 

In  a  minute  they  all  came  hurrying  in — comp- 
troller, secretary,  clerks,  grooms,  and  underlings 
— in  dress  or  in  undress,  a  motley  crew,  as  the 
occasion  had  found  them. 

"  What  is  it,  my  lord  ?  "  asked  the  first,  in 
an  astonished  voice.  He  was  a  tall,  pallid  man, 


THE    LORD    TREASURER         243 

so  inured  to  method  and  routine  that  a  rat 
behind  the  wainscot  was  enough  to  throw  him 
into  a  flutter. 

"  Master  Hugh,"  cried  the  Treasurer — 
"  Master  Hugh  !  I  found  that  in  my  pocket 
when  I  came  to  strip — a  thing  that  I  had  never 
put  there,  or  put  unconsciously.  What  do  you 
make  of  it,  my  friend?  What  does  it  import?  " 

They  all  gathered  round  the  comptroller  to 
read  the  billet,  and,  having  examined  it,  fell 
apart  with  grave,  inquiring  faces. 

The  comptroller  looked  up,  his  lips  trembling. 

"  My  lord,"  he  said,  "  it  can  signify  but  one 
thing." 

"  My  assassination?  " 

"  Without  doubt,  my  lord." 

The  Treasurer  turned  pale  to  the  bare  dome 
of  his  head.  He  had  to  the  last  hoped  to  have 
his  worst  apprehensions  refuted ;  but  it  was 
plain  that  only  one  construction  could  be  put 
upon  the  missive. 

"How  did  it  reach  me?"  he  said  dismally. 
"  How  did  it  get  there?  " 

"  Probably,  my  lord,"  ventured  the  secretary, 
a  sleek,  apologetic  man,  "  it  was  slipped  into 
your  lordship's  hand  by  one  whom  your  lord- 


244         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

ship  mistook  for  a  chance  importunate  suitor, 
and  your  lordship  accepted  and  pouched  and 
forgot  it." 

"  It  may  have  represented  a  threat  or  a 
friendly  warning,"  said  the  comptroller. 

'  Your  lordship  hath  many  and  mighty 
enemies,"  said  the  secretary,  "  as  who  hath  not 
among  the  great  and  influential?" 

'  Your  power,  your  imperious  will,  your  favour 
in  high  places,  my  lord,"  said  the  comptroller— 
"  these  be  all  incitements  to  the  envious  and 
unscrupulous.  Without  question  there  is  some 
conspiracy  formed  against  your  life." 

"  I  could  almost  suspect  you  all  of  collusion 
in  it,"  cried  the  Treasurer  bitterly,  "  for  the 
relish  with  which  you  dispose  of  me." 

The  comptroller  murmured  distressfully, 
"  O,  my  lord,  my  lord  1  " 

Sir  Richard  broke  out,  moved  beyond  fen- 
durance  : 

"  What  the  devil  do  you  all,  moaning  and 
croaking?  I  am  not  food  yet  for  your  commis- 
eration. The  plot  may  be  already  forward  while 
you  babble.  Look  under  the  bed,  Phineas." 

The  valet  dived,  rose,  scoured  the  room, 
examined  into  every  possible  lurking-place. 


THE    LORD    TREASURER          245 

"Shall  I  set  a  guard,  my  lord?"  inquired 
the  comptroller. 

The  Treasurer  exploded  : 

11  Set  a  guard  when  the  thief  is  in  !  A  house- 
hold of  braying  jackasses  !  Go,  dolt,  and  remedy 
your  oversight.  Shut  the  gates  and  warn  the 
porter ;  beat  up  every  hole  and  corner  first. 
See  that  not  a  soul  is  allowed  entrance  on  any 
pretext  whatever.  And,  hark  ye,  Master  Hugh, 
no  eye  to-night  shall  be  shut  on  penalty  of  my 
high  displeasure.  An  unwinking  vigil,  an  un- 
winking vigil,  Master  Hugh,  on  the  part  of  all. 
See  to  it.  And  if  any  one  asks  an  audience, 
save  of  the  first  consequence  and  character,  I 
am  indisposed,  Master  Hugh — I  am  indisposed, 
do  you  hear?  " 

He  was  so,  in  very  truth,  as  he  drove  them 
all  out,  and  locked  the  door  upon  himself,  and 
sank  into  a  seat  before  the  fire.  A  sickness  of 
apprehension  stirred  in  his  bile  and  made  his 
face  like  yellow  wax.  This  business  had  given 
him  such  a  shock  as  he  had  never  before  ex- 
perienced. What  did  it  mean — what  could  it 
mean?  No  doubt  the  secretary's  theory  was 
the  right  one  :  he  was  incessantly  being  im- 
portuned by  petitioners,  and  often,  to  get  rid 


246         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

of  them,  he  would  accept  their  memorials,  and 
pocket  and  forget  all  about  them.  So  must  it 
have  been  with  this  paper,  thrust  into  his  hand 
amidst  a  crowd.  It  was  merciful  chance  alone 
that  had  restored  it  to  his  notice  before  too  late. 
But,  accepting  all  that,  why  was  his  life 
threatened?  His  heart  was  full  of  an  emotional 
complaint  and  protest  against  destiny.  He  was 
not  an  unjust  man  as  things  went — certainly  not 
so  signally  as  to  merit  this  fatal  distinction. 

He  passed  a  terrible  night,  shrinking  from 
every  shadow,  starting  at  every  sound.  Morn- 
ing when  it  came  only  added  to  his  sick  per- 
plexity. What  course  was  he  to  pursue,  fearful 
of  the  lurking  terror,  to  preserve  his  dignity 
and  his  life  at  once?  He  dressed  in  a  sort  of 
mental  palsy,  crept  breakfastless  to  his  library, 
and  sent  for  the  comptroller's  report.  So  far, 
it  appeared,  the  night  had  passed  without  event. 
No  doubt  the  deed  was  destined  for  the  open  air. 

As  he  stood,  trying  to  deliberate  his  policy,  a 
visitor,  the  Earl  of  Tullibardine,  was  announced 
as  craving  an  audience.  His  lordship  was  a 
personal  friend  of  his,  and  beyond  suspicion. 
Reluctantly  Sir  Richard  gave  the  order  for  his 
admittance . 


THE    LORD    TREASURER          247 

The  nobleman  came  in  breezily,  and  with  much 
concern  expressed  over  the  report  of  the 
Treasurer's  indisposition.  "  Which/'  said  he, 
"  maketh  me  loth  to  trouble  your  lordship  on 
a  personal  matter,  which,  saving  the  pressure  of 
the  occasion,  I  would  forbear.  But  the  business 
calls  for  dispatch,  and  your  lordship  had  prom- 
ised me  an  answer."  < 

Sir  Richard  put  a  hand  to  his  forehead. 

"  Not  well,"  he  murmured,  "  and  overtaxed. 
You  must  pardon  me,  my  lord.  What  busi- 
ness?" 

"  Why,"  cried  the  Earl,  "  have  you  forgot 
how  you  promised  me  three  days  ago  to  speak 
to  the  King  about  appointing  my  kinsman, 
Robert  Caesar,  to  a  vacant  clerkship  of  the 
Rolls,  and  how,  asking  me  for  a  memorandum  of 
the  matter,  I  writ  '  Remember  Ccesar  '  on  a  slip 
of  paper  and  gave  it  you?" 

Sir  Richard  stood  staring  a  moment,  then 
burst  into  an  uproarious  laugh. 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU 

THE  sun  was  setting  over  Hexham  in  Northum- 
berland as  the  last  remnants  of  the  Lancastrian 
force  broke  and  scattered  before  the  explosive 
charges  of  the  Yorkists  under  Montacute,  Warden 
of  the  East  Marches.  Thenceforth  all  was  mad 
flight  and  frenzied  pursuit.  No  quarter  was  given 
or  expected.  The  hurtling  fragments  of  the  rout 
flew  in  a  thousand  directions,  to  be  pursued  and 
overtaken  and  stamped  to  extinction  where  they 
fell.  Steel  and  flesh  and  harness,  swept  into 
mangled  heaps,  dotted  acres  of  the  country, 
like  manure  laid  ready  for  its  potent  dressing. 
Hardly  a  cry  or  a  movement  issued  from  these 
fermenting  masses.  Montacute  had  ordered  his 
work  thoroughly,  and  the  chase  as  it  swept  on 
and  away  had  seen  to  it  that  the  fallen  should 
yield  no  hangman's  perquisites.  Only  a  spark 
struck  out  from  steel  here  and  there  witnessed  to 

249 


250         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

the  sharp  eviction  of  a  soul  betrayed  through  its 
agony. 

The  young  May  moon  stole  up  and  out,  and, 
in  sickness  at  the  sight,  drew  a  passing  cloud 
across  her  face.  The  horse  that,  miles  away, 
carried  a  frantic  woman  and  her  child,  stumbled 
in  the  shadow,  and,  half  recovering  itself,  and 
again  sinking,  pitched  its  riders  upon  the  turf. 

They  rose  immediately,  to  find  themselves  upon 
the  fringe  of  a  dense  wood,  remote,  unknown, 
but  a  haven  of  desperate  refuge  in  their  plight. 

'*  Art  thou  hurt,  child?  "  whispered  the  breath- 
less woman. 

"  No,  mother." 

"  Come,  then.  No  other  choice  is  ours  but 
death  and  outrage.  We  must  take  shelter  where 
we  can." 

She  seized  his  hand — he  was  a  pretty,  delicate 
boy  of  eleven — and  together  they  entered  among 
the  trees.  All  was  strange  and  voiceless  there, 
yet  the  leaves  were  not  so  full-grown  but  that 
the  moonlight  penetrating  might  help  them  a 
little  on  their  way.  It  sparkled  softly  on  the 
woman's  girdle,  and  on  her  little  turbaned  cap, 
and  on  the  jewels,  which  she  had  not  thought 
in  her  haste  to  remove  or  hide,  clasped  about  her 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU  251 

white  neck ;  it  peopled  the  glades  with  moving 
phantoms,  mystic  and  watchful.  She  felt  the 
little  hand  in  hers  clutch  and  quiver,  and  squeezed 
it,  drearily  responsive. 

"  Better,"  she  said,  "  these  thousand  spectres 
than  a  single  sword  of  the  usurper." 

She  was  only  thirty-four,  and  of  those  years 
she  had  spent  five  in  the  Tower.  Yet,  born  as 
she  was  a  child  of  sorrow,  always  the  sport  of 
faction,  her  baby  rattle  the  roll  of  drums,  her 
games  real  warriors  and  real  warfare,  her  indomi- 
table spirit,  wasting  itself  for  ever  in  fruitless 
struggles  and  on  timorous  souls,  refused  still 
to  acknowledge  its  own  eclipse.  She  had  fought, 
had  she  known  it,  her  weak  husband's  cause  to 
within  sight  of  the  end,  but  the  fire  in  her  heart, 
though  in  the  full  front  of  this  disaster,  was  not 
yet  wholly  extinguished.  Only  a  tragic  woe 
lined  her  beautiful  face,  and  she  clung  half 
'hysterically  to  this  one  shadow  out  of  all  her 
dreams  which  remained  to  her. 

She  had  been  a  child  herself  when  her  gentle 
boy  was  born.  They  were  even  now  more  like 
brother  and  mothering  sister  than  son  and  parent. 
What  hope  remained  to  her  was  centred  entirely 
in  him  and  his  passionate  preservation.  She 


252         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

carried  him  into  the  woods,  as  a  frightened  wood- 
cock bears  its  fledgling,  with  one  only  instinct — 
to  put  as  far  and  as  obscure  an  interval  as  possible 
between  their  enemies  and  themselves. 

Yet,  in  the  end,  worn  with  grief  and  terror 
and  the  actual  fatigues  of  that  bloody  day,  they 
faltered  and  sunk  down  exhausted  at  the  lip  of 
a  little  clearing  situated  but  a  few  hundred  yards 
within  the  forest -edge.  There  was  a  mossy  bank 
there,  and  on  it,  under  the  shadow  of  a  spreading" 
oak-tree,  they  fell  and  clung  together. 

"  Neddy,  my  babe,  my  little  woeful  prince  !  " 
wept  the  mother.  "  There,  hide  thee  thy  face 
within  my  bosom,  and  try  to  sleep.  It  shall 
force  my  bursting  heart  to  still  itself  to  be  thy 
quiet  pillow." 

The  boy  obeyed,  crying  silently.  Yet,  so  it 
happened  that,  spent  with  emotion,  in  a  little  a 
merciful  oblivion  overtook  him,  and,  listening 
to  his  regular  breathing  as  to  soft  music,  the 
woman  too  sank  presently  drowned  in  a  sea 
of  forgetfulness.  And  there  they  lay  at  peace 
in  the  quiet  night,  with  moss  for  their  bedding 
and  green  leaves  for  their  canopy. 

A  sense  of  light,  of  human  neighbourhood, 
awoke  them  almost  at  the  same  moment,  and 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU  253 

they  sat  up  together  with  a  start.  It  was  bright 
morning  in  the  forest,  and  three  evil,  uncouth 
men  stood  gloating  down  upon  them. 

The  woman's  heart  seemed  to  stop.  The  rose 
and  warmth  of  slumber,  mortal  lures  to  villainy, 
froze  upon  her  cheek.  Instinctively  her  hand 
stole  to  the  haft  of  a  little  dagger  stuck  at  her 
waist.  For  minutes  dead  silence  prevailed,  and 
then  she  spoke,  in  a  voice  which  strove  vainly 
to  command  itself  : 

"  Pray  you  mercy,  gentle  sirs  !  What  would 
you  with  us?  O,  not  to  betray  our  weakness  !  " 

Her  very  plea  was  provocation  to  such  cattle 
— a  reassurance  and  an  invitation.  She  had  sup- 
posed them,  in  the  first  shock  of  discovery,  to 
be  Yorkist  soldiers,  but  a  moment's  thought  had 
undeceived  her.  Shaggy,  unkempt,  grossly 
attired  and  rudely  armed,  there  was  nothing  to 
associate  these  with  the  bearing  of  regular  troops. 
They  were  mere  prowling  revers  of  the  woods, 
beasts  and  marauders,  who  took  their  toll  of 
lonely  travellers,  and  ravished  and  murdered  as 
the  chance  came  to  them. 

One  of  the  three,  a  huge,  bull -like  ruffian,  in 
hood  and  battered  breastplate,  rose  from  the  bow 
on  which  he  leaned,  and  turned  to  his  comrades. 


254         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'  What  say  you,  gossips — a  pretty  finch  to 
pull  ?  Their  weakness,  sooth  1  Do  we  not  love 
all  weakness  in  such  guise?" 

One,  who  stood  behind  in  a  high  scarlet  cap, 
peering  over  his  friend's  shoulders,  clucked  in 
his  throat,  and  cracked  his  fingers.  He  was 
grotesquely  tall,  lean,  misshapen,  with  long, 
hungry  chaps  and  a  frosty  nose. 

"  Gossips,"  he  said,  in  a  thin,  sharp-set  voice, 
"  shall  we  not  pluck  this  pigeon  ere  we  feast  on 
her?,  My  blood  is  cold,  and  sack  would  be  very 
warming." 

The  Queen  wrenched  a  gold  chain  from  her 
arm,  and,  rising  hurriedly,  flung  it  to  the  ground. 

"  Take  it,  in  God's  pity,"  she  said,  "  and  let 
us  go  !  Gentlemen — sweet  gentlemen  !  a  broken 
woman  throws  herself  upon  your  charity.  O, 
teach  her  that  some  mercy  still  remains  to  men  !  " 

"  A's  unprotected,"  said  the  third  fellow,  his 
eyes  burning — "  likely  some  little  sow  that  flees 
and  squeaks  before  the  boars  of  York." 

"  We'll  make  her  squeak,  I  warrant,"  said  the 
first  speaker. 

The  lank  creature  skipped  to  the  front,  and 
snatched  up  the  chain. 

"  Drink  first,"  he  cried,  "  drink,  drink  !    I'll 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU  255 

with  this  to  the  '  Chequers  '  and  return  anon 
with  sack." 

The  bull-headed  man  threw  himself  on  him 
in  a  fury ;  in  a  second  they  were  all  fighting 
together  for  possession  of  the  chain.  The 
strongest,  the  first -mentioned,  secured  it. 

"  Drink,"  he  roared.  "  Much  drink,  I  trow, 
for  those  remaining.  Trust  thee  the  chain,  Jake 
Andrews  ?  Marry  I  will  when  Tib's  eve  is  come." 

The  other  wriggled,  cracking  his  finger -joints. 

'  Take  it  thyself,  then,  Cuckoo,  only  speed 
fast  and  bring  us  good  store." 

They  wrangled  yet  awhile,  but  in  the  end  the 
holder  of  the  chain  went  off,  with  threats  of 
fierce  reprisals  should  the  two  remaining  venture 
to  take  advantage  of  his  absence.  They  leered 
at  one  another  oddly  as  he  disappeared. 

"  A' 11  claim,  as  ever,  the  first  and  the  best  of 
everything,"  growled  the  short,  thick -set  man 
under  his  breath. 

"Shall  he  now,  Thomas  Kite,  shall  he?" 
answered  the  long  scarecrow  eagerly.  Bending 
with  a  grotesque  writhe,  he  jerked  himself 
suddenly  stiff  again,  a  staring  smile  on  his  face. 
"  Cometh  our  chance  long  sought,  Thomas  Kite," 
he  whispered.  "  Shall  the  Cuckoo  always  claim 


256         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

the  Cuckoo's  share?  Not  if  one  be  quick  and 
clever,  gossip." 

He  squeaked,  and  leaping,  dodged  and 
screwed  behind  the  other.  The  Queen,  knife  in 
hand,  her  teeth  set,  her  muscles  rigid,  was  almost 
upon  them.  As  she  lifted  her  arm,  the  stubby 
rogue  ran  under,  and  caught  her  round  the  waist. 

She  struck  and  struck  at  him,  but  her  shortened 
blows  fell  harmless.  She  could  not  get  one  home 
so  long  as  he  held  her  thus,  and  he  knew  it  and 
cried  out,  straining : 

"  Cut  me  the  whelp's  throat,  Jake  Andrews, 
and  so  get  behind  her." 

The  boy,  terror-struck  and  whimpering,  held 
to  his  mother's  skirts.  -With  a  mortal  effort,  she 
wrenched  herself  free  from  her  captor,  and, 
throwing  down  her  blade,  which  Jake  instantly 
secured,  seized  the  child  convulsively  into  her 
clutch. 

"  No,  no  !  "  she  cried,  "  I  am  disarmed.  In 
God's  name  spare  him  I  See,  we  will  stand  like 
the  wretched  sheep,  dumbly  beseeching  your 
mercy.  There,  take  all  I  have — my  jewels ' 

She  began,  with  feverish  fingers,  to  unclasp 
the  collet  from  her  neck.  Jake,  leering  and 
humping  his  shoulders,  stopped  her  mid-way. 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU  257 

'  What  now,"  growled  the  Kite  ;    "  shall  they 
not  be  ours,  then?  " 

"  Patience,  good  gossip,  patience  !  "  said  the 
other  softly  in  his  ear.  "  Would  not  the  Cuckoo, 
returning,  note  at  once  their  absence,  and  so  be 
moved  to  fury?  No  suspicion,  Thomas  Kite — 
none.  Lull  him,  lull  him,  and  then — one  blow, 
and  all  is  ours — wine,  jewels,  gold,  and — hum  !  " 
He  hugged  himself,  gluttonously  contorted.  "  Is 
not  a  half  share  better  than  a  third,"  he  said, 
"  or  none  at  all?  And  as  for  the  little  pretty, 
pleasant  tit -bit " 

The  Kite  roared  out  suddenly  on  the  captives  : 

"  Down  with  ye  both  asquat  on  grass  bank 
yonder,  and  move  so  much  as  an  eyelid  at  your 
peril !  " 

Trembling  and  distraught,  the  Queen  dragged 
the  boy  to  a  place  beside  her  on  the  turf,  and  so, 
clasped  together,  they  cowered,  awaiting  the  end. 

Despair  was  in  her  heart.  So  remote,  so 
utterly  unfriended,  she  knew  not  where  to  look 
for  hope  or  remedy.  Cursed  and  proscribed  in 
the  thick  of  enemies,  no  self -confession  that  she 
might  venture  but  must  prove  her  worst  damna- 
tion. Outlawed  herself,  she  was  the  natural  prey 
to  outlaws.  To  reveal  her  identity  were  to  forgo 

17 


258         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

the  smallest  consideration  a  threat  of  vengeful 
justice  might  otherwise  perhaps  enforce — were 
to  unmuzzle  these  ravening  beasts  finally  and 
effectively.  And  yet  she  dared  not  threaten 
justice,  lest  passions  so  reckless  should  be  fired 
thereby  to  instant  retaliation. 

She  could  only  pray  to  her  gods  in  a  dumb 
agony  of  supplication  to  contrive  some  means 
for  their  escape  ;  for  herself  she  could  think  of 
no  possible  way,  unless  at  the  last  to  snatch  death 
from  some  ill -guarded  weapon. 

What  long  torture  of  mind  she  endured  while 
sitting  there  facing  her  brutal  captors,  awaiting 
the  Cuckoo's  return  and  thereafter  the  final 
struggle,  one  may  imagine  in  a  measure.  A 
suffocating  lump  seemed  to  rise  in  her  throat 
when  at  length  she  heard  his  footsteps  on  the 
twig-strewn  turf,  and  her  arm  tightened  con- 
vulsively about  her  boy. 

The  returned  ruffian,  when  he  hove  into  sight, 
had  been  obviously  priming  himself  for  the 
affray.  He  was  not  drunk,  but  his  huge  cheeks 
were  blistered  red  and  a  fire  blinked  in  his  eyes. 
He  carried  over  his  shoulder  a  net  containing  a 
jar  of  sack  and  a  couple  of  curved  drinking- 
horns,  and,  striding  across  to  his  comrades,  he 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU  259 

bent,  with  a  fierce  inquiring  oath,  to  sling  his 
burden  to  the  grass.  As  he  thus  stooped,  Jake 
and  the  Kite,  standing  on  either  side  of  him, 
drove  each  a  sudden  knife,  handle -deep,  into 
the  thick  of  his  neck.  The  monster,  with  one 
slobbering  choke,  heaved  forward  and  went  down 
like  an  ox.  His  fingers  raked,  his  legs  jerked 
for  a  little,  and  then  the  whole  welter  relaxed 
and  subsided.  Simultaneously  with  its  cessation 
of  movement  the  two  murderers,  as  if  by  one 
impulse,  made  for  the  wine-jar.  Their  hands 
were  shaking,  their  cheeks  spotted  with  white. 
They  spilled  as  much  as  they  gained,  but  each 
in  the  end  succeeded  in  gulping  a  hornful 
between  his  chattering  teeth.  And  then  I 

The  woods  echoed  with  their  screeches  ;  they 
writhed  like  scalded  snakes  upon  the  grass.  Kor 
the  Cuckoo,  coveting  not  a  half  but  the  whole 
of  the  spoil,  had  gone  even  a  step  further  than 
his  confederates,  and  had  poisoned  the  wine  he 
brought  them  with  some  swift  corrosive  acid 
snatched  up  from  the  "  Chequers  "  harness- 
room. 

Was  the  biter  bit  ever  mangled  with  a  longer 
tooth?,  The  pale  Queen,  risen  throughout  this 
bloody  drama,  watching  half -paralysed  its  course, 


260         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

with  but  reason  enough  left  to  hold  the  child's 
face  hidden  from  it,  was  even  minutes  in  guess- 
ing the  truth.  But  when  at  length  she  realised  it, 
with  a  sob  of  thankfulness  she  seized  her  boy's 
hand,  and,  avoiding  those  prostrate,  faintly-gasp- 
ing horrors,  fled  deep  and  deeper  into  the  forest, 
until,  as  history  relates,  she  found  that  chivalrous 
one  whose  generosity  was  to  obtain  her  means 
to  cross  the  water. 


"KING   COLLEY' 

*  WE  will  now,  my  dear  people,"  said  Mr. 
Gibber,  "  proceed  to  investigate  the  ecclesiastical 
Phcenix  which  has  reared  its  giant  head  from 
the  ashes  of  the  conflagration,  and  to  criticise 
its  claims  to  a  greatness  commensurate  with  its 
bulk." 

He  spoke  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  which,  in 
this  summer  of  1721,  had  stood  some  years  com- 
pleted, the  stupendous  "  monument  without  a 
tomb  "  to  its  creator's  genius. 

Mr.  Gibber  had  been  entertaining  a  party  of 
provincial  actors  and  actresses  to  luncheon  at 
the  "  Globe  "  tavern,  in  Fleet  Street,  where, 
amongst  other  things,  they  had  consumed  a 
half-gallon  of  arrack  punch  at  six  shillings 
the  quart.  The  company  was  in  consequence 
very  merry,  and,  though  still  properly  im- 
pressed with  the  magnitude  of  the  occasion, 
a  little  more  inclined  than  heretofore,  per- 


261 


262         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

haps,  to  familiarity  with  its  host,  and  even 
to  a  touch  of  that  professional  sportive- 
ness  whose  cheap  but  characteristic  quality 
seems  somehow  to  this  day  to  suggest  the 
missing  link,  much  sought  and  unaccountably 
overlooked,  between  men  and  monkeys.  Mr. 
Gibber,  however,  genial  as  always  in  self-suffi- 
ciency, recked  nothing  of  the  change.  He 
walked  at  the  height  of  pompous  good -humour, 
his  usually  pasty  countenance  flushed,  his  hat 
under  his  arm,  and  his  full  wig  pushed  a  trifle 
back  from  his  forehead.  He  wore  a  heavily 
embroidered  claret-coloured  coat  with  stiff 
skirts,  buttoned  at  the  waist  alone,  black  velvet 
breeches,  ruffles,  and  a  "  bosom  "  of  Mechlin 
lace,  pearl  silk  stockings  with  gold  clocks,  and 
scarlet  heels  to  his  shoes.  His  magnificence  put 
into  the  shade  the  somewhat  meretricious  finery 
of  his  companions,  and  that  was  exactly  as  it 
should  have  been.  King  Colley  would  have 
wished  to  impress  upon  the  public  in  general 
the  fact  that  he  was  merely  acting  cicerone,  in 
a  spirit  of  tolerant  condescension,  to  certain 
country  insignificances  whom  it  was  his  humour 
to  patronise,  and  that  there  was  something  a 
little  fine  in  his  taking  these  humble,  unsophisti- 


"KING    COLLEY'  263 

cated  souls  under  his  personal  protection,  and 
exhibiting  to  them  the  lions  of  the  Metropolis. 

The  party,  chattering,  laughing,  and  gaping, 
went  down  Fleet  Street,  and  paused  a  moment 
at  the  ruined  gateway  on  Ludgate  Hill.  It  had 
been  gutted  by  the  great  fire,  but  the  mutilated 
statues  of  King  Lud  and  his  sons  still  remained 
to  its  west  front.  Mr.  Gibber  pointed  out  the 
middle  figure. 

"  King  L'ud,"  he  said. 

"  Lud  !  "  responded  Mrs.  Lightfoot,  and  Mr. 
Barney  Bellingham,  low  comedian,  laughed 
suddenly,  and  then  looked  preternaturally 
solemn . 

They  were  some  five  or  six  in  all,  including 
a  "  heavy  father  "  and  spouse,  "  Sweet  Corinna," 
so  called,  the  most  affectedly  rapturous  of 
ingtnu.es,  and  the  two  above-mentioned.  Mrs. 
Lightfoot,  a  faded  coquette  in  a  soiled 
"  paysanne,"  had  once  played  Hypolita  in  the 
Laureate's  own  "  She  Would  and  She  Would 
Not,"  and  could  claim  some  kinship  with  genius. 

"  A  fabulous  monarch,"  said  Mr.  Gibber 
grandiloquently,  "  and  therefore  figuring  not 
inappropriately  on  the  portal,  as  one  might  call 
it,  to  Pretence.  Your  servant,  sir." 


264         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

'He  addressed  a  little  old  gentleman  who  at 
that  moment  had  alighted  from  a  chair  which 
had   been   deposited   close   beside   the   speaker. 
The    stranger    was    the    most    withered    small 
creature   it   was   possible  to   conceive — a   nona- 
genarian at  least  by  his   looks — a   fledgling  of 
second  childhood,  his  head,  naked  and  skinny, 
in  a  great  wig  like  a  nest.     His  eyes  were  dim, 
his   nose   was  a   rasped   claw,   his   fingers  were 
horny    talons.     He    was    dressed    very    plainly, 
almost  like  a  farmer,   in  a  drab -coloured  coat 
and  breeches  ;    and  something  of  rustic  vigour 
showed  in  the  positive  sprightliness  with  which, 
in  spite  of  his  years,  he  stepped  out  upon  the 
stones.       Mr.    Gibber,    a    practised    reader    of 
character,    distinguished   the   country   cousin   in 
him  at  once,  and  was  moved  to  some  affable 
patronage . 

"  If  you  are  going  our  way,  sir,"  he  said, 
"  and  an  arm  would  be  of  any  service  to  you  ? 
My  name  is  Gibber — Colley  Gibber,  sir,  of  whom 
it  is  just  possible  you  may  have  heard." 

"  O,  indeed  !  "  said  the  old  gentleman,  with 
a  kindly,  nervous  lift  of  his  eyes.  "  Mr.  Gibber 
is  it?  A  very  gratifying  accident.  I  must  live 
remote  beyond  conception,  sir,  to  be  ignorant 


"KING    COLLEY'  265 

of  that  name.     Thank  you,  Mr.  Gibber.     You 
were  saying,  sir,  as  I  alighted ?  " 

"  I  was  saying,  sir,"  said  the  Laureate,  "  that 
a  fabulous  monarch,  like  him  above,  fittingly 
adorns  the  portal  to  pretence." 

"Meaning ?"    said    the    old    gentleman, 

pointing  forward  with  his  stick. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Gibber — "  meaning  the 
vast  but  ineffective  fane  towards  which  we  are 
now  directing  our  steps." 

"Ah!"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "It  will 
have  its  faults,  no  doubt." 

"  -We  will  consider  them,"  said  the  poet  loftily. 
"  Is  this  possibly  your  first  visit,  sir?  Well, 
better  late  than  never,  as  old  Heywood  has  it. 
You  will  find  much  to  surprise  and  more  to  dis- 
approve, or  I  am  mistaken  in  myself.  I  am 
doing  showman  at  the  moment,  sir,  to  a  party 
of  country  cousins  " — he  whispered,  "  plain,  un- 
sophisticated folk,  but  respectable — and  if  you 
care  to  join  us " 

"  With  pleasure,  Mr.  Gibber,"  said  the  old 
fellow.  "  It  is  a  most  happy  chance  for  me — 
and  not  less  for  the  support  of  your  arm  than  of 
your  opinion.  I  thought  I  should  like  to 
approach  the  Cathedral  on  foot — to  have  its 


266         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

dimensions  gradually  revealed  to  me  ;  but  I  find 
in  good  truth  the  hill  trying  to  my  old  bones. 
I  am  eighty-nine,  Mr.  Gibber.  Would  you 
believe  it  ?  ** 

'  It  is  a  creditable  venture,  sir,"  said  the  poet. 
"  Ulysses  himself  in  his  old  age  never  made  a 
bolder.*1 

They  approached,  as  he  spoke,  the  extended 
space  on  which  the  building  stood,  and  divers 
exclamations  of  wonder  broke  from  the  lips  of 
the  little  party — "  My  stars  !  "  "  Prodigious  fine, 
on  my  word !  '*  "  Tis  mighty  likeable  !  " 
'  Why — why,  the  sweetest  regale  !  "  "  Are  you 
not  properly  struck,  Barney,  my  boy?  "  "  Mum, 
mum,"  and  so  on.  Mr.  Gibber,  with  the  air  of 
one  magnificently  responsible  for  the  show,  stood 
leaning  familiarly  against  one  of  the  posts  which 
encompassed  the  paved  area  before  the  west 
door,  and  remained  silent  pending  the  recovery 
of  his  company.  But  he  took  snuff,  and  laughed 
patronisingly  from  time  to  time  over  the  fervour 
of  its  ejaculations . 

"  Rat  me,  my  dears,"  he  said  by  and  by,  when 
the  volume  of  enthusiasm  had  spent  itself  ;  "  but 
your  artlessness  refreshes  me — upon  my  soul  and 
honour,  it  refreshes  me.  This  is  the  very 


"KING    COLLEY'  267 

respectable  work  of  a  journeyman  builder,  and 
as  full  of  holes  as  poor  Tom's  coat." 

"  La,  Mr.  Gibber  I  "  said  the  sweet  Corinna, 
with  a  giggle,  "  I  always  thought  the  gentle- 
man was  at  the  top  of  his  trade." 

"  '  They  say  best  men  are  moulded  out  of 
faults,'  "  murmured  Mr.  Bellingham,  with  a  wink 
at  the  heavy  mother. 

The  poet  saw  the  wink,  and  waxed  a  little 
emphatic.  It  was  Dr.  Johnson  who  had  once 
said  of  his  art  of  conversation  that  "  he  had 
but  half  to  furnish,  since  one-half  was  oaths.'* 
But  he  was  after  all  a  good-natured  man. 

"  Then,  God  judge  me,"  he  cried,  straining 
his  voice,  which  was  none  of  the  strongest,  "  if 
he  hadn't  a  title  to  be  called  perfection  1  " 

Mrs.  Lightfoot,  alarmed  by  his  heat,  stopped 
a  levity  on  her  lips  half-way,  and  addressed  the 
great  man  very  soberly. 

"  I  prithee,  sir,"  she  said,  "  to  correct  our 
untutored  visions,  naturally  dazzled  in  their  first 
contemplation  of  so  unaccustomed  a  sight." 

"  Why,  my  dear,"  said  the  Laureate,  molli- 
fied at  once,  "  I  can  quite  understand  your 
naive  enthusiasm ;  but  it  is  a  fact  that  in  order 
to  criticise  an  achievement  one  must  know  some- 


268        HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

thing  of  the  principles  of  the  art  which  designed 
it." 

"  No  greater  architect  of  his  own  fortune  than 
King  Colley  !  "  cried  Mr.  Bellingham. 

'  I  thank  you,  sir,"  answered  Mr.  Gibber 
stiffly  ;  then  added,  blazing  out  again,  "  You  will 
oblige  me  by  holding  your  damned  tongue  !  " 

The  old  gentleman,  anxious  and  conciliatory, 
put  in  a  word  : 

"  Your  professional  knowledge,  sir,  must  make 
your  comments  doubly  instructive.  Pray  inform 
us  to  what  details  of  the  building  you  take 
particular  exception." 

'  That  is  a  very  reasonable  demand,  sir," 
answered  the  Laureate,  daring  the  offending  and 
rather  elated  low  comedian  from  the  corner  of 
his  eye.  '  I  have  no  doubt  that  to  the  unin- 
formed in  such  matters  the  magnitude  of  this 
conception  palliates,  or  even  overpowers,  the 
meretriciousness  of  its  details.  But  you  mistake 
me  on  one  point.  My  profession,  though  it 
embodies  all  the  arts,  specialises  in  none,  and 
if  I  claim  a  dictatorial  right  in  this  instance, 
it  is  simply  because  as  an  actor  I  represent  the 
trinity  in  unity  of  the  creative  faculty." 

"  I  see,  I  see,"  said  the  old  gentleman.     "  It 


"KING    COLLEY'  269 

is  merely  accident  which  has  kept  dormant  your 
architectural  proclivities." 

'  Well,  sir,"  said  the  poet,  with  a  smile,  "  I 
flatter  myself  I  could  have  evolved,  under  com- 
pulsion, a  more  faultless  erection  than  this." 

The  stranger  nodded  with  an  air  of  satisfied 
acquiescence . 

"  I  shall  be  really  grateful  to  Mr.  Gibber," 
he  said,  "if  he  will  help  me  to  the  right  point 
of  view.  To  my  uninstructed  intelligence,  I 
confess,  the  pile  seems  to  stand  well." 

The  poet  laughed  tolerantly. 

"  A  good  fortune  it  owes  to  its  site.  O, 
you  must  really  pardon  me,  sir  !  It  is  in  truth 
a  cold,  heavy,  tasteless  affair,  imposing  in  no 
more  than  bulk,  lacking  the  inspiration  of 
sacramentality.  Bear  with  me,  now  bear  with 
me,  while  I  strip  off  for  your  edification  a  little 
of  the  monster's  pretence.  You  will  observe  its 
most  prominent  feature,  the  dome?  Very  well, 
sir ;  that  dome  sums  up  in  itself  the  hollowness 
of  the  entire  conception.  It  violates  the  first 
principles  of  the  art  it  professes,  with  a  monstrous 
impertinence,  to  crown.  Its  height  bears  no 
relation  to  the  proportions  of  the  structure 
within,  and  is  fixed  thus  arbitrarily  for  no  other 
purpose  than  effect. " 


270        HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  But  is  not  the  effect  good?  "  ventured  the 
old  gentleman. 

'  Why,  stap  my  vitals,  sir  1  "  said  Mr.  Gibber, 
"  have  you  the  assurance  to  condone  a  whited 
sepulchre?  The  greater  the  audacity,  the  worse 
the  pretence.  The  cupola  proper  to  this  design 
lies  within  that  external  sham  like  a  head  under 
a  steel  basinet.  What  we  look  on  is  a  mere 
exuberance,  supporting  nothing  but  itself.  Will 
you  tell  me  that  that  is  in  accordance  with  the 
principles  of  art,  which  demand  that  each  part 
should  naturally  progress  in  lines  of  beauty  from 
the  parent  stock  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  stranger — "  no.  You  teach 
me  much,  sir." 

'  That  pretence,"  continued  the  poet  trium- 
phantly, "  is  not  confined  to  the  head,  though 
naturally  it  finds  there  its  most  swollen  expres- 
sion." 

"  By  the  Lord,  that's  true,"  murmured  Mr. 
Bellingham,  and  the  sweet  Corinna  choked  a 
little  laugh  into  her  handkerchief. 

1  Those  side  elevations,  for  instance,"  went 
on  Mr.  Gibber,  with  a  doubtful  glance  askance, 
at  the  lady,  "  concealing  as  they  do  the  buttresses 
and  clerestory  windows  of  the  nave,  constitute 


"KING    COLLEY'  271 

in  their  upper  order  a  mere  mask  to  the  real 
form  and  construction  of  the  building.  Now, 
in  a  perfect  design  there  should  be  no  screen- 
ing of  structural  necessities,  but  an  ingenious 
adaptation  of  all  such  to  the  general  concep- 
tion. These,  sir,  are  a  few  of  the  most  patent 
defects,  upon  which,  saving  your  patience,  I 
could  enlarge  at  pleasure.  But  I  trust  I  have 
said  enough  to  correct  your  point  of  view  to  its 
necessary  focus  ;  and  if  some  disenchantment 
is  the  result " 

"  Well,  well,  Mr.  Gibber,"  interrupted  the  old 
gentleman — "  well,  well.  But  I  don't  know  that 
I  can  quite  confess  to  that." 

"  O,  very  good,  sir  I  "  cried  the  poet 
ironically.  "  And  according  to  what  impene- 
trable illusion,  if  you  please,  do  you  persist  in 
your  faith?  " 

'  Why,"  said  the  old  gentleman — "  why,  you 
see,  Mr.  Gibber,  I  designed  the  thing  myself." 

"  Sir  Christopher,  Sir  Christopher  I  "  cried  a 
breathless  gentleman  who  came  hurrying  up  at 
the  moment.  "  We  had  lost  you,  sir.  This  was 
naughty  of  you  to  venture  up  the  hill  alone." 

Mr.  Bellingham,  with  one  look  at  the  rueful 
Laureate,  sat  flat  down  upon  the  pavement  and 
delivered  himself  to  hysterics. 


THE  SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE 

HE  was  a  young  man,  but  appearing  careworn 
and  prematurely  aged.  His  face  had  a  spoiled 
and  dingy  look  such  as  an  actor's  bears  by  day- 
light, when  for  the  paint  and  glow  and  glamour 
of  the  boards  are  substituted  the  grey  and 
gripping  realities  of  existence.  The  fruitless-, 
ness  of  all  hope,  of  all  cheery  effort,  Deemed 
typified  for  him  in  the  stagnant  November  fog 
which  brooded  over  the  City  without.  As  he 
gazed  through  his  window  into  the  dreary  murk, 
the  dull  roar  which  reached  his  ears  from  Fleet 
Street  and  its  adjacent  market  sounded  to  him' 
like  the  boom  of  surf  to  a  castaway  in  a  desolate 
land.  He  was  stranded,  he  felt,  among  the  waste 
places  of  life,  and  no  prospect  of  release  was 
ever  more  to  be  his. 

He  had  started  his  professional  career  with 
high  expectations  and  a  confidence  born  of 
capital  possession.  They  had  all,  hopes  and 

18  273 


274         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

confidence  and  capital,  gone  to  wreck  on  the 
shoals  of  a  giant  fraud.  What  solace  to  him 
was  it  that  the  law  had  ended  by  claiming  its 
own?  It  had  been  a  greater  mercy  had  it 
remained  eternally  blind,  and  left  him,  one  of 
many  victims,  to  live  on  content  in  his  fool's 
paradise.  Though  his  substance  had  been  dissi- 
pated, the  interest,  regularly  paid,  had  served  him 
for  his  needs.  It  had  been  all  the  sinews  he 
desired  in  his  wrestle  with  fortune.  Was  it  not 
in  the  bitter  irony  of  things  that  his  high  rectitude 
should  be  expected  to  rejoice  in  that  vindication 
of  justice  which  had  left  him  a  pauper  ? 

He  recalled,  in  a  sudden  impotent  fury,  the 
occasion,  or  the  suspected  occasion,  which  had 
marked  him  down  for  ruin.  His  capital  had 
been  all  invested  in  Bank  of  England  stock, 
and  the  securities  had  been  deposited  with 
Fauntleroy,  the  now  notorious  banker  of  Berners 
Street.  It  had  been  this  villain's  practice  to 
forge  powers  of  attorney  enabling  him  to  dispose 
of  his  clients'  property,  and  the  man's  cool 
audacity  had  even,  it  was  said,  carried  him  so 
far  as  to  the  occasional  appending  of  a  customer's 
name  to  a  fraudulent  deed  in  the  customer's  own 
presence,  and  the  then  sending  it,  with  its  ink  still 


SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE  275 

wet,  as  though  from  the  visitor's  hand,  into  the 
clerks'  department. 

Such,  he  fully  believed,  had  been  the  case 
with  him  during  a  business  call  he  had  made 
one  day  upon  the  head  of  the  house.  He  remem- 
bered, cursing  the  memory,  the  sleek,  plausible 
figure  in  its  black  tights  and  broadcloth,  the 
spotless  frill  at  its  bosom,  the  smile  on  its  pros- 
perous face,  the  pen  travelling  in  its  plump 
fingers  while  the  voice  went  on,  even,  polite, 
and  interested.  To  be  signing  away  so  in- 
humanly the  fortune,  the  happiness,  the  soul  of 
a  fellow-creature,  and  never  all  the  while  to  flush 
or  falter.  Damn  him  ! 

Well,  he  was  damned  maybe.  A  glutton,  a 
sybarite,  a  voluptuary,  he  had  come  to  the  end 
of  his  feasting,  and  only  for  Lazarus  remained 
the  scraps  and  dregs  of  the  banquet. 

A  rap  at  the  door  broke  in  upon  his  miserable 
reverie,  and  a  small  servant  entered  the  room. 
Two  gentlemen,  she  said,  desired  particularly  to 
see  him.  Who  were  they?  She  did  not  know, 
they  would  give  no  name.  Where  were  they? 
In  the  surgery,  which  opened  on  the  back. 
They  had  brought  something  with  them,  some- 
thing on  a  hand -cart,  and  then  other  men,  who 


276         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

had  deposited  the  something,  had  left.  She  was 
used  to  the  traffic,  or  had  been,  and  showed  no 
agitation  or  alarm. 

Resurrection-men  I  He  had  no  desire  to  pay 
their  price,  and,  if  he  had,  no  means.  The  very 
house  in  which  he  lived,  an  inheritance,  was 
already  under  treaty  for  sale.  Frowning  and 
compressing  his  lips,  he  descended  to  the  room 
below.  The  something,  stark  and  obvious  under 
a  black  cloth,  was  laid  already  on  the  dissecting  - 
table.  Two  gentlemen  turned  to  greet  him. 

They  were  both  grave,  formal,  unconvincing ; 
yet  perfectly  refined  in  manner.  One,  who  con- 
stituted himself  the  spokesman,  began  to  address 
him  at  once  in  a  low  voice  : 

"  You  will  please  to  pardon,  sir,  on  the  ground 
of  extreme  urgency,  this  unceremonious  visit.  I 
must  say  at  once  that  we  do  not  wish  to  state  our 
names,  and  I  will  admit  unhesitatingly  that  we 
are  disguised.  This  "  —he  signified  the  silent 
shape—  "  is  the  subject  of  our  visit.  We  desire 
your  acceptance  of  it  in  the  interests  of  science. 
No  return  is  required,  and  no  condition  made, 
save  that  you  undertake  to  convince  yourself, 
beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt,  and  before 
proceeding  to  extremities,  that  no  flicker  of  life 
survives  to  it." 


SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE  277 

Professionally  self-possessed,  the  young  doctor 
had  yet  to  rally  all  his  nerve -power  to  meet 
so  amazing  a  charge.  He  delayed  to  answer  for 

some  moments. 

.  i 

"And  if  it  did?"   he   said. 

'  Then  you  will  have  no  reason  to  regret  your 
caution/'  answered  the  gentleman. 

"  I  cannot  pretend  to  understand  you." 

"  I  must  urge  upon  you  the  necessity  of  a 
quick  decision/'  said  the  stranger.  "  Will  it 
satisfy  you  to  be  told  that  the  subject  " — he  again 
pointed  to  the  hidden  form — "  expressly  desired 
that  this  task  should  be  deputed  to  you  ?  " 

"Are  you  mad?"  said  the  young  surgeon, 
"  or  am  I,  or  do  you  think  me  so?  What  task— 
and  who  desired  it  ?  " 

"  The  task,"  said  the  gentleman,  "  of  ascer- 
taining, in  the  first  instance,  that  life  is  indisput- 
ably extinct,  and  of  then  devoting  the  remains,  at 
your  complete  discretion,  to  the  interests  of 
science.  I  may  tell  you  " — he  seemed  to  hesitate 
a  moment — "  that  the  subject  suffered  under  a 
morbid  apprehension  of  premature  burial." 

"  'His  apprehensions,"  said  the  surgeon, 
"  could  be  easily  set  at  rest." 

"  I  hope  so,"  answered  the  stranger. 


278         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  But — but,"  cried  the  surgeon  in  desperation 
—he  made  a  movement  as  if  clutching  at  his 
hair — "  you  must  see,  gentlemen,  that  I  cannot 
possibly  undertake  the  responsibility  on  these 
vague  premises." 

"  Question  me,  sir,  if  you  will,  and  I  will 
endeavour  to  answer  to  your  satisfaction." 

'  Tell  me  then .  Who  is  this  man  ?  What  was 
his  complaint — presumably  mortal?  Was  he  a 
patient  of  mine  that  he  selected  me  for  this 
extraordinary  business  ?  " 

The  gentleman  again   seemed  to  hesitate. 

"  He  was,"  he  said,  "  — yes,  I  may  call  him 
a  patient  of  yours,  inasmuch  as  you  attended  him 
during  the  course  of  a  distemper  or  aberration 
with  which  he  was  seized.  He  considered  that 
he  owed  you  a  return  for  his  somewhat  cavalier 
exploitation  of  your  services,  and,  at  the  last, 
these  were  the  only  means  he  could  devise  for 
giving  some  effect  to — well,  shall  we  call  it  his 
remorse?  The  sentiment,  combined  with  the  fact 
that  his  demise,  or  his  assumed  demise,  occurred 
in  this  neighbourhood,  decided  our  choice." 

The  young  surgeon,  forcing  all  his  wits  to  a 
focus,  fixed  his  eyes  searchingly  on  the  speaker. 

"  He  was  murdered,"  he  said.     "  Is  that  it?  " 


SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE  279 

The  other  shrugged  his  shoulders,  with  a 
scarce  perceptible  smile. 

"  O,  sir,"  he  said,  "  if  you  take  that  view  ! 
But  a  moment's  examination  will  convince  you." 

"  Let  me  make  it,  then." 

The  stranger  interposed  his  body,  quietly  but 
resolutely. 

"  After  we  are  gone." 

'Why  will  you  not  give  me  your  names?" 

"  Because,  sir,  we  do  not  wish  to  associate  our- 
selves with  an  act  which  might  prove  difficult 
of  explanation,  and  which,  given  publicity,  must 
most  certainly  defeat  its  own  object.  You  must 
accept  our  word  for  it  that  we  were  both  close 
personal  friends  of  the  deceased,  and  that  we 
have  undertaken  this  difficult  charge  out  of  pure 
regard  for  an  intimacy  which  contains  for  us 
many  endearing  recollections." 

'  What  was  the  cause  of  death?  Will  you 
tell  me  so  much?  " 

"  It  was  the  result  of  a  fall." 

The  surgeon,  wavering  between  conscience 
and  professional  acquisitiveness,  gnawed  his 
forefinger  in  an  agitated  way. 

"  But  why,"  he  said—  "  why  should  not  a  post- 
mortem examination  at  his  own  house  have 
sufficed  for  his  apprehensions?" 


280         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

*  There  is  no  calculating,"  answered  the 
stranger,  "  the  lengths  to  which  such  diseased 
imaginativeness  will  carry  a  man.  Safety,  no 
doubt,  to  his  mind,  consisted  in  nothing  short  of 
dismemberment."  'He  looked  at  his  watch  in 
a  hurried  way.  '  Time,  sir,"  he  said,  "  presses. 
If  our  natural  scruples  shrink,  as  I  say,  from 
association  with  this  business,  no  such  sentiment 
need  apply  to  you.  Gentlemen  of  your  profes- 
sion, I  understand,  are  not  expected  to  be  over- 
inquisitive  as  to  the  material  provided  for  their 
anatomical  studies.  You  may  rest  completely 
satisfied  that  nothing  discreditable  to  ourselves 
or  harmful  to  you  attaches  to  this  case.  Very 
well.  Subjects,  I  believe,  are  costly.  Here  is 
one  to  your  hand  for  nothing.  But  should  our 
friend's  terrors  prove  actually  justified,  and  this 
to  be  a  case  of  suspended  animation,  in  that 
event,  sir,  I  will  answer  for  it  that  the  patient's 
gratitude  would  take  a  form  upon  which  you 
would  have  plentiful  reason  to  congratulate  your- 
self. And  in  the  meantime  every  wasted  minute 
is  a  reproach  to  us .  Answer,  sir,  will  you  accept 
the  conditions  or  not?" 

"  You  will  not  tell  me  your  name  ?  " 

"  No." 


SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE  281 

"  Nor  his  there?" 

"  I  must  not,  indeed." 

"  Nor  where  to  communicate  with  you,  in 
case ?  " 

"  No  purpose  would  be  served  thereby.  We 
have  done  what  he  desired  of  us,  and  there  our 
duty  to  him  ends.  The  rest  lies  between  you 
and  him." 

The  surgeon,  with  a  gesture  which  might  have 
implied  resignation  or  repudiation,  turned  his 
back.  When  he  looked  round  again  he  was 
alone. 

He  made  a  movement  towards  the  door,  as 
if  in  a  pretence  to  himself  to  recall  his  visitors, 
but  stopped  on  the  instant,  biting  his  lip. 

"  I  will  not  be  such  a  hypocrite,"  he  muttered. 
He  knew  perfectly  well,  indeed,  what  was  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart — hope  ;  a  vague,  indefinable 
feeling  that  all  here  was  not  as  intimated ;  that 
out  of  the  very  strangeness  and  mystery  of  the 
affair  might  come  profit  and  perhaps  salvation 
to  himself,  a  desperate  man. 

With  a  somewhat  haggard  face  he  moved  on 
tiptoe  to  lock  both  the  surgery  door  and  that 
leading  into  the  yard  at  the  back.  Then,  feeling 
awed  against  his  will,  he  turned  to  the  hidden 
form. 


282         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

It  was  still  early  morning,  but  the  fog  made 
a  thick,  dingy  twilight  in  the  room.  Not  a  sound 
broke  the  dead  stillness  ;  nothing  moved. 

Yes,  something — the  thing  under  the  cloth  ! 

Was  he  overwrought — victim  to  some  wild 
delusion  ?  He  could  have  sworn  it ;  and  yet  the 
motion  had  been  so  slight,  so  hardly  perceptible, 
it  might  have  been  the  mere  contraction  or 
dilation  of  a  shadow. 

Again  ! 

With  a  gasp  of  horror  he  leaped  to  the  table, 
tore  away  the  cloth,  and  revealed  the  face, 
blotched  and  livid,  of  Fauntleroy  the  forger. 

The  truth  rushed  upon  him  as  he  stood  there, 
pallid  and  staring,  and  with  it  an  understanding 
of  each  one  of  his  visitor's  studied  ambiguities. 
The  great  criminal,  he  remembered  now,  was 
to  have  been  executed  that  morning.  Where 
had  he  heard  it — that  whisper,  that  incredible 
rumour,  hinting  of  a  hangman  extravagantly 
bribed  by  friends  of  the  criminal,  and  of  a  silver 
tube  to  be  passed  into  the  condemned  gullet? 
A  thing  impracticable — preposterous — he  had 
dismissed  it  as  a  canard ;  yet,  somehow,  it 
appearedj  accomplished.  Either  that  way  or 
another — what  did  it  matter?  The  man  had  been 


SURGEON  OF  GOUGH  SQUARE  283 

hanged,  patently  on  the  evidences  before  him, 
and  as  patently  he  still  lived — only  as  yet  the 
merest  flicker  of  vitality,  expressed  in  the  pulsing 
of  the  purple  cedematous  swelling  about  the 
throat.  A  little  either  way,  and  the  spark  were 
coaxed  into  flame  or  quenched  for  ever. 

Which  way,  then?  He  stood  for  minutes,  quite 
rigid,  battling  with  his  emotions.  His  wrongs  ; 
his  diabolical  opportunity ;  his  perfect  immunity 
from  detection ;  his  justification,  inasmuch  as 
this  life  was  already  forfeit  to  the  law.  'Hyde 
roared  in  him,  and  Jekyll  pleaded.  The  very 
clothes  of  the  thing,  unaltered  in  their  black 
neatness,  sleekness,  hypocrisy,  filled  him  with  an 
indescribable  loathing.  He  stepped  forward,  his 
fingers  crooked. 

At  that  moment  the  laugh  of  a  baby  sounded 
in  the  yard  outside.  He  paused,  and  stood 
listening.  Suddenly  his  face  lightened  : 

"  Not  guilty  I  "  he  cried,  "  not  guilty,  little 
one  I  "  and  hurried  to  the  succour  of  his  enemy. 


THE   PRIOR   OF   ST.   COME 

A  CADAVEROUS,  hump -shouldered  man  paced  a 
walk  of  the  Louvre  garden.  He  would  have 
been  pronounced  old,  though,  in  fact,  his  years 
were  no  more  than  fifty.  In  form  and  expres- 
sion he  was  the  typical  miser,  lean  and  grey 
from  abstinence,  morose  from  suspicion,  bent 
from  persistent  crouching  over  insufficient 
embers .  His  face  was  tallow  grey ;  the  whites 
of  his  eyes  and  the  orifices  of  his  long,  pinched 
nose  were  tinged  with  red.  He  was  dressed 
in  a  short,  waistless  jerkin,  once  black,  and 
trimmed  at  the  hem  with  mangy  fur,  once  brown. 
Black,  ill -gartered  hose  covered  to  the  hips  a 
couple  of  legs  like  hurdle-stakes,  and  his  stooped 
head  was  cased  in  a  greasy  calotte,  surmounted 
by  that  form  of  cap  known  as  the  cap  of  main- 
tenance, the  brim  of  which,  peaking  to  the  front 
and  raised  behind,  supported  a  number  of  little 


286         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

cheap  leaden  figures  of  saints.  In  contradic- 
tion to  all  this  ostentatious  shabbiness,  a  collar 
of  gold  shells  and  costly  jewels  hung  about  his 
neck. 

As  he  paced  deliberately,  his  hands  clasped 
behind  his  back,  his  lips  perpetually  working 
without  sound,  he  would  glance  up  with  a 
stealthy  leer  from  time  to  time  at  a  figure  that 
walked  beside  him.  This  figure,  sufficiently 
jocund  and  prosperous  for  contrast,  was  that  of 
a  healthy  priest  in  cape  and  cassock,  with  a 
crisp,  golden  beard  and  blue  eyes,  a  certain  craft 
in  which  rather  belied  their  conscious  merriment. 
An  odd  broadness  of  the  skull  above  the  ears, 
which  were  gross  and  misshapen,  betokened  in 
this  person  a  development  of  what  Spurzheim 
would  have  called  an  "  affective  propensity  to 
acquisitiveness."  He  was,  however,  a  notoriously 
holy  man,  and  one  of  the  King's  chaplains  to 
boot.  The  other  was  the  King  himself,  Louis  XI . 

Presently  the  latter,  pausing  beside  a  pedestal 
on  which  stood  a  statuette,  none  too  unsugges- 
tive,  of  the  Paphian  Venus,  looked  up  in  an 
abstracted  way. 

"  Still  vacant,  still  vacant  ?  "  he  said,  lisping 
a  little  between  his  toothless  gums.  "  That  was 


THE    PRIOR    OF    ST.    COME       287 

what  you  remarked,  was  it  not,  Pere  Bonaven- 
ture  ?  " 

"  Not  in  so  many  words,  son  Louis,"  answered 
the  chaplain.  "  But  in  very  truth  the  Priory 
of  St.  Come  remains  to  this  day  a  body  without 
a  head.  The  severance,  moreover,  hath  endured 
so  long  that  I  doubt  if  any  reunion  of  the  parts, 
were  that  conceivable,  could  restore  its  healthy 
circulation  to  the  community.  The  good  prior 
and  his  monks  have  become  estranged  in  this 
dull  interval.  His  authority  is  out  of  date. 
Were  he  yet  to  return — a  wild  hypothesis — he 
would  think  to  take  them  up  where  he  left  them, 
and,  being  disillusioned,  chaos  would  result." 

'  You  are  convinced  he  is  dead  ?  " 

"  Either  that,  or  held  by  the  infidels  in  a 
captivity  doomed  to  be  perpetual.  No  reason- 
able man  can  doubt  it." 

"  Pasque-Diea!  "  said  Louis,  "that  same 
reason  is  a  good  servant  to  one's  interests.  I 
myself  am  never  so  reasonable  as  when  I  cut 
off  a  head  that  annoys  me." 

He  glanced,  rasping  his  frosted  chin,  at  the 
chaplain  and  down.  He  could  gauge  this  jocund 
suitor  well  enough ;  he  knew  him  to  be  at  heart 
a  libertine  and  self-seeker ;  but,  inasmuch  as 


288         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

his  own  faith  was  a  conglomeration  of 
hypocrisy  and  abject  superstition,  he  dreaded 
always  to  question  the  casuistries  of  its  anointed 
ministers.  One  could  never  tell  what  might 
befall. 

The  matter  under  discussion  turned  upon  the 
wisdom  of  appointing  a  new  head  to  the  Priory 
of  St.  Come,  an  important  foundation  in  the 
southern  quarters  of  the  city.  Long  months  past 
the  King  had  granted  a  reluctant  permission  to 
its  aged  chief  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy 
Land ;  and  the  old  man  had  gone  and  he  had 
not  returned .  Time  went  by ;  no  news  had 
ever  been  received  of  the  wayfarer  ;  by  degrees 
it  had  come  to  be  concluded  that  death  or 
captivity  had  terminated  his  pious  adventure. 
The  young  monks  of  St.  Come,  freed  from  his 
restraining  hand,  had  begun  to  break  bounds  ; 
scandals  were  getting  rife  ;  interested  observers 
impressed  upon  the  King  the  moral  certainty  of 
the  old  prior's  death,  and  the  necessity  of  his 
bringing  the  monastery  again  under  the  discip- 
linary control  of  a  head.  Amongst  these  the 
most  pertinacious,  and,  as  possessing  the  royal 
ear,  the  most  hopeful,  was  the  Chaplain  Pere 
Bonaventure,  who  greatly  coveted  for  himself  the 


THE    PRIOR    OF    ST.    COME       289 

desirable  office.  It  promised  him  almost  illimit- 
able opportunities  for  the  sort  of  life  he  favoured. 

'  This  dream,  father,  of  which  you  spoke," 
said  the  King,  without  raising  his  eyes— "  it 
seemed  to  have  its  significance,  you  would  imply 
— some  bearing  on  the  case  ?  " 

"  I  would  imply  nothing  of  the  sort,"  answered 
the  chaplain.  "  We  are  expressly  warned 
against  attaching  a  prognostic  value  to  these 
figments — though,  to  be  sure,  we  might  claim 
our  justification  in  Holy  Writ." 

"  Given  the  seer,"  said  Louis.  '  Well,  well; 
relate  thy  dream." 

"  Methought,"  said  the  priest,  "  that  thou  and 
I  stood  beside  a  church,  in  the  walls  of  which 
hard  by  appeared  a  little  threatening  fissure. 
And  the  monks,  instead  of  attending  to  their 
office,  kept  revelry ;  and  always  with  the  sound 
of  their  roystering  the  fissure  extended.  But 
thou,  while  I  still  urged  upon  thee  the  neces- 
sity of  seeking  and  amending  from  within  the 
ever-widening  evil,  would  persist  in  holding  me 
in  converse,  saying,  '  Patience  yet  a  little,  father, 
and  we  will  enter.'  And  suddenly  there  came 
a  clap  of  song  surmounting  all  in  blasphemy, 
and  with  a  roar  the  breach  burst  and  the  tower 

19 


290         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

rocked  and  the  walls  sank  down  upon  us  both, 
crushing  out  our  lives." 

He  ended,  his  eyes  slewed  craftily  upon  the 
other.  "  From  Joseph,  through  the  royal  succes- 
sion," he  said,  "  descends  the  gift  of  interpreta- 
tion. To  me  it  was  just  a  dream." 

The  King  looked  up.  "  Pasque-Dieu!  "  he 
said — "  and  to  us  a  providence,  since  it  gives 
us  a  pretext  for  disposing  of  a  pest.  Go,  go, 
in  God's  name  " — he  paused  to  raise  his  hat — 
"  and  be  Prior  of  St.  Come." 

>He  was  rid  at  last  of  an  importunity,  though 
he  was  only  to  exchange  it  for  a  worse. 

•He  was  walking  in  his  garden  one  day  weeks 
later,  when  there  came  towards  him  an  old, 
blanched  figure,  feverishly  paddling  with  a 
pilgrim's  crossed  staff  and  mumbling  as  he 
approached.  It  was  the  aged  Prior  of  St.  Come, 
delayed  in  his  return  by  cross  winds  and  crosser 
ailments . 

Louis,  coming  to  a  stop,  stood  conning  the 
apparition  half -petrified.  For  a  moment,  indeed, 
he  fancied  it  to  be  a  veritable  wraith,  so  whitely 
emaciated  looked  the  face,  set  in  its  cloudy  fleece 
of  beard  and  hair,  with  the  eyes  like  two  black 
borings . 


THE    PRIOR    OF    ST.    COME       291 

"  Ad juva  nos,  Domine,  adjuva  nos!"  he 
muttered,  crossing  himself. 

The  old  man  tottered  forward,  and  cried  in 
a  shrill  tone  :  "  Restore  to  me  my  fold,  son 
Louis — restore  to  me  my  fold  I  " 

The  voice,  and,  more  than  it,  the  words,  broke 
the  spell.  The  King's  lips  tightened,  shrewd  and 
caustic.  Not  on  such  worldly  interests  were  a 
spirit  bent. 

"  Welcome,  father,"  he  said — "  thou  art 
welcome  home." 

"  No  welcome,"  cried  the  old  man.  "  My 
children  disown  me ;  another  sits  in  my  place. 
I  but  carried  my  pitcher  to  the  well,  and  lo  I 
when  I  returned  with  it  brimming,  the  door  was 
locked  against  me .  They  feign  to  know  me  not ; 
they  stand  and  revile  me ;  let  me  in  to  them 
that  I  may  afford  good  evidence  of  my  identity." 

'He  was  a  spirited  ancient,  and  he  shook  his 
staff  meaningly. 

"  That  may  not  be,"  said  Louis  smoothly, 
"  since  you  are  pronounced  deceased." 

"By  whom?" 

"  By  the  King." 

"  I  am,  nevertheless,  very  much  alive." 

"  Impossible,    when    the    King    himself    has 


292         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

ruled  you  dead.  Why  else  should  he  have  filled 
your  office?  As  Prior,  father,  believe  us,  you 
are  hopelessly  defunct ;  as  priest  and  man  you 
may  yet  exist  on  our  sufferance.  We  do  not  hold 
it  altogether  a  capital  offence,  your  thus  pre- 
suming to  refute  our  conclusions  by  being  alive  ; 
yet,  Pasque-Dieu!  the  inconvenience  you  cause 
us  by  your  inconsiderateness  is  little  less  than 
monstrous.  We  should  have  liked  to  hear  some 
note  of  apology  from  you,  some  hint  of  regret 
for  your  unconscionable  survival ;  but  there,  it 
is  a  self-seeking  world." 

The  old  man  stood  amazed  and  speechless  ; 
nor  was  his  bewilderment  lessened  by  the  kind- 
ness with  which  the  King  presently  took  his  arm 
and  walked  him  off  up  the  garden. 

"  A  monarch's  word,  father,"  said  Louis,  "  is 
sacred,  as  much  to  himself  as  to  another.  Any- 
thing else  that  it  is  in  our  power  to  bestow  upon 
you  we  shall  be  happy  to  consider  in  the  light 
of  your  palpable  deserts.  Now  we  shall  place 
you  in  the  hands  of  M.  de  Comines,  our  Secre- 
tary of  State,  with  orders  to  him  to  attend  to 
your  interests." 

So,  with  a  hundred  questions  as  to  the  Grand 
Turk  and  the  pilgrim's  adventures  by  the  way, 


THE    PRIOR    OF    ST.    COME       293 

he    led    him    to    the    palace    and    got    rid    of 
him. 

For  good  and  all,  as  he  supposed ;  but  in 
that  he  was  very  quickly  disillusioned.  The 
deposed  prior  was  by  no  means  the  man  to  take 
his  cashiering  meekly.  Stubborn  and  masterful 
by  nature,  the  authority  of  his  late  achievement 
had  but  consolidated  his  sense  of  righteousness. 
His  interview  with  M.  de  Comines  left  him  with 
no  delusions .  The  Secretary  bowed  him  out  with 
a  whole  bouquet  of  flowery  phrases,  which,  beingj 
cut  for  decorative  purposes,  were  destined  to 
bear  no  fruit.  Eere  Bonaventure,  lolling  in  his 
chair  at  St.  Come,  laughed  securely.  "  Rira 
bien  qui  rira  le  dernier!  "  chanted  his  prede- 
cessor with  a  bitter  grimness. 

-He  appeared  at  the  next  royal  leve"e,  and  re- 
newed his  petition ;  his  Majesty  was  gentle  but 
expostulatory.  He  sought  to  penetrate  once 
more  into  the  Louvre  garden,  generally  open 
to  men  of  piety,  but,  being  repulsed  by  the 
guard,  took  his  station  at  likely  exits,  and 
clamoured  when  the  King  went  by.  His  perse- 
cution of  his  monarch  became  by  degrees 
persistent  and  intolerable.  Louis  grew  to 
dread  the  inevitable  apparition  with  its  wail, 


294         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

monotonous  and  eternal,  '*  Restore  to  me  my 
fold  !  "  The  creature  got  upon  his  nerves,  and 
even  threatened  to  spoil  his  sleep.  Then  one 
day,  quite  suddenly  and  characteristically,  he 
resolved  to  rid  himself  of  the  incubus.  He  sum- 
moned his  provost -marshal,  Tristan  1'Hermite, 
and  sitting  humped  in  his  chair,  closed  one  eye, 
and  f ocussed  the  other  shrewdly  on  his  favourite . 
"  Tristan,"  he  said,  "  divinity  utters  itself  in 
the  mouths  of  kings — is  it  not  so?  " 

The  officer,  a  thick-set,  beetle-browed  boar 
of  a  man,  whose  body  was  encased  in  steel 
covered  by  a  blue  tabard  embroidered  with 
fleurs-de-lys,  grunted  in  reply.  Louis  remained 
silent. 

"Why  waste  words,  gossip?"  said  Tristan. 
"  Tell  me  the  job  and  the  man." 

His  eyes,  red  and  projecting,  rolled  in  their 
sockets.  He  gave  his  flock  of  coarse  hair  a 
contemptuous  shake. 

"  Wherefore,"  went  on  the  other,  contempla- 
tive, *'  to  traverse  a  royal  decision  is  to  commit 
treason  against  Heaven — a  crime  even  the  more 
abhorrent  in  one  who  professes  himself  a  minister 
of  religion.11 

"  The  man?  "  repeated  Tristan. 


THE    PRIOR    OF    ST.    COME       295 

"  'Hast  thou  heard  speak,  Tristan,"  said  the 
King,  "  of  this  troublesome  prior  of  St. 
Come?" 

The  Provost-Marshal  turned  and  made  for  the 
door . 

'  Tristan !  "  cried  the  King ;  but  without 
effect.  He  uncoiled  himself  with  a  smile. 
"  Pasque-Dieu"  he  said,  "  what  a  precipitate 
fellow  !  But  at  least  I  can  sleep  to-night  with 
a  peaceful  conscience." 

And  yet,  when  taking  the  air  the  next  morning 
in  company  of  this  very  confidant,  there,  slipped 
in  by  the  relaxed  guard,  was  the  familiar,  hated 
figure,  pleading  and  clamouring. 

"  Hog  !  Dolt  !  "  cried  the  King,  maddened 
beyond  all  subterfuge,  turning  on  his  hench- 
man :  "  Did  I  not  tell  thee  to  rid  me  of  the 
prior  of  St.  Come?  " 

"  Hig;hty  -  tighty,  gossip  !  "  answered  the 
Provost — "  what's  all  this  to-do  ?  And  have  I 
not?" 

"  The  prior,  I  say — the  prior?  " 

"  Fast  in  a  sack,  gossip,  and  lying  these  ten 
hours  past  at  the  bottom  of  the  Seine." 

"  Fool  1     But  I  meant  this  one  !  " 

"  Phew  !    Why  didn't  you  say  so?    The  prior, 


296         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

quotha.     This  is  not  the  prior.     But  rest  easy; 
the  mistake  is  soon  amended." 

"  No,"  said  the  King,  who  after  all  had  a 
sense  of  humour ;  "  this  is  Heaven's  hand,  and 
I  but  the  poor  tool  in  it.  The  prior  claim  is 
his  " — and  he  turned  to  the  suppliant.  "  Go," 
he  said,  "  in  peace,  old  man.  Return  to  thy  flock. 
The  seat  is  once  more  vacant,  and  thy  petition 
is  granted." 


CAPTAIN    MACARTNEY 

ONE  dark  November  afternoon  in  the  year  1712 
a  horseman,  riding  westwards  from  Cobham 
village,  in  Surrey,  pulled  up  at  the  junction  of 
the  road  with  the  Kingston  and  Guildford 
highway,  and  dismounted  in  order  that  he  might 
read  the  terms  of  a  proclamation  pasted  upon 
the  signpost  there. 

"  Whereas,"  ran  the  advertisement,  "  Bernard 
Macartney,  Captain  in  her  Majesty's  forces, 
stands  charged  with  the  wilful  murder  of  James 
Douglas,  Duke  of  Hamilton,  in  Hyde  Park  on 
the  1 5th  of  this  present  month,  a  reward  of 
two  hundred  pounds  is  hereby  offered  to  any 
person  or  persons  who  shall  discover  and  appre- 
hend, or  cause  to  be  discovered  or  apprehended, 
the  said  Captain  Bernard  Macartney,  to  be  paid 
by  the  Lords  Commissioners  of  her  Majesty's 
Treasury  upon  his  being  apprehended  and  lodged 
in  any  one  of  her  Majesty's  gaols." 


297 


298         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

The  traveller  rose  from  his  perusal  with  a 
grin. 

"  And  so  they  bell  the  cat,"  said  he.  "  Now, 
if  /  were  this  Macartney — I  say  //  I  were — me- 
thinks  I  should  feign  to  be  one  of  my  own 
pursuers  lusting  to  gain  the  reward.  There's 
no  disguise  for  some  men  like  honesty,  nor,  in 
certain  cases,  no  self-help  like  self-sacrifice." 

He  remounted  and  pushed  leisurely  on  his 
way,  cutting  across  the  high-road,  and  taking 
the  track  for  By  fleet,  which  ran  herefrom  over 
Cobham  Heath,  a  lonely  and  near  treeless  waste. 
Naturally,  as  he  rode,  his  mind  was  busy  over 
the  event  which  had  produced  the  proclamation — 
the  recent  fatal  duel,  that  is  to  say,  between 
the  Lords  Hamilton  and  Mohun.  The  sensation 
the  affair  had  caused  was  due  as  much  to  the 
reputed  foul  play  which  had  characterised  it  as 
to  the  exalted  rank  of  its  principals  and  its  tragic 
termination.  The  meeting — ostensibly  the  result 
of  a  dispute  concerning  some  family  property 
— had  taken  place  at  seven  in  the  morning  near 
the  Ring  in  Hyde  Park — that  fashionable  "  dusty 
mill-horse  drive  "  which  lay  off  Tyburn  Lane, 
about  mid-way  between  the  Tyburn  and  Hyde 
Park  Gate  turnpikes— and  there  were  six  con- 


CAPTAIN    MACARTNEY  299 

cerned  in  it,  three  of  a  side.  The  provocation, 
given  and  accepted,  had  been,  it  was  rumoured 
rightly  or  wrongly,  a  mere  blind  to  a  premedi- 
tated murder.  His  Grace  of  Hamilton — then  on 
the  eve  of  his  departure  for  Paris  as  the  Queen's 
Ambassador,  and  the  holder  of  a  watching  brief, 
as  it  were,  on  behalf  of  St.  Germains — was 
notoriously  obnoxious  to  Marlborough  and  the 
Whigs,  and  the  quarrel,  the  whisper  went,  had 
been  thrust  upon  him  at  the  hands  of  a  creature 
of  the  Duke's,  a  discredited  brute  and  libertine, 
whose  challenge,  under  the  circumstances,  he 
might  very  well  have  ignored.  But  his  Grace 
had  an  invincible  spirit,  and  the  desire,  perhaps, 
to  rid  the  world  of  an  intolerable  ruffian  ;  and 
so  the  meeting  had  occurred.  At  its  outset, 
without  any  feint  of  punctilio,  the  two  had  rushed 
at  one  another  more  like  hyenas  than  men,  a 
world  of  long-smothered  exasperation,  no  doubt, 
nerving  their  hands ;  and,  amidst  the  rain  of 
stabs  and  blows  that  followed,  Mohun  had  been 
the  first  to  fall.  And  while  he  had  lain  on  the 
ground,  gasping  out  his  life,  the  other,  also  sorely 
wounded,  leaning  above  him,  Macartney,  it  was 
said,  had  run  up  behind  and,  giving  the  Duke 
his  death-blow,  had  escaped  with  his  surviving 


300         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

companion  in  iniquity.  The  Duke  had  been 
helped  towards  the  Cake -house — that  little,  pretty 
rustic  lodge,  with  its  green  trees  and  pond, 
whither  fashion  was  used  to  resort  for  its  sylla- 
bubs and  "  pigeon-pie  puff  "  —but  had  died  on 
the  grass  before  he  could  reach  it.  And  so  the 
matter  had  ended  for  all  but  the  absconding 
seconds . 

"  And  those,"  thought  the  traveller,  "  can  spell 
out  proclamations,  no  doubt,  with  the  best  of 
their  pursuers.  I  put  my  money  on  Macartney." 

He  was  a  spare,  small -boned  man,  with  a 
delicate,  invalidish  face  and  an  expression  on  it 
of  impudent  temerity.  His  voice  cracked  when  he 
raised  it,  and  he  was  prone  to  spasms  of  laughter 
which  hurt  his  chest.  His  hat,  his  heavy  surtout, 
his  great  jack-boots  seemed  all  too  large  for  him, 
like  a  preposterous  shell  to  a  very  little  tortoise  ; 
but  he  rode  with  spirit,  making  small  account 
of  his  trappings  and  the  lonely  road  and  sinister 
weather.  In  fact,  as  with  many  sickly  con- 
stitutions, his  elasticity  and  muscular  strength 
were,  relatively,  abnormal . 

The  heath,  desolation  manifest,  rolled  on 
before  him  in  brown,  wind-shivered  billows  ;  the 
sky  was  like  a  slab  of  grey  stone,  roofing  a 


CAPTAIN    MACARTNEY  301 

dead  world.  There  was  a  wolfish  snarl  in  the 
air,  a  threat  of  coming  snow. 

Suddenly,  without  a  note  of  warning,  a  burst 
and  ring  of  hoofs  sounded  in  the  road  close 
behind  him.  Wheeling  on  the  instant,  he 
observed  a  stranger,  the  noise  of  whose  approach 
had  evidently  fallen  deadened  on  the  spongy 
turf -side  by  which  he  had  ridden. 

"  How  now  1  "  demanded  the  traveller,  in  his 
quick  little  voice :  "  what  the  devil  do  you, 
springing  upon  me  like  this?" 

"  Pardon,  pardon,"  cried  the  stranger.  He 
rode  up,  breathing  as  if  winded.  "  I  am  a  timid 
man,  sir,  and  the  prospect  looked  wicked,  and, 
seeing  you  going  before,  I  ventured  to  push  on 
to  crave  your  company.  This  place  hath  a  dreary 
notorious  reputation,  I  am  told,  and  I  am  very 
nervous." 

His  jovial  face,  twinkling,  for  all  the  cold,  with 
perspiration,  seemed  to  belie  his  assertion.  It 
was  broad,  and  flat  of  surface,  with  the  features 
in  low  relief  ;  and  its  mouth  was  so  wide  that, 
when  distended  in  a  smile,  all  above  appeared 
detachable,  like  the  lid  of  a  comic  tobacco -jar. 
By  the  tokens  of  his  greasy  jasey,  with  the  little 
soiled  round  hat  on  top,  and  the  clerical  cut  of 


302         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

his  coat,  he  might  have  been  a  damaged  parson, 
who  had  taken  the  wrong  turning  and  missed 
his  way  to  paradise. 

The  other  conned  him  speculatively. 

'  What  made  you  ride  on  the  grass?  "  said  he. 

"  Why,  I  feared  to  alarm  ye,"  answered  the 
newcomer,  "  and  so  miss  the  chance  of  a  way- 
fellow." 

"  Gad-so  !  "  exclaimed  the  traveller.  "  And 
whither,  by  your  leave,  may  your  road  lead  you 
over  this  same  wicked  heath?" 

"  Sir,"  said  the  stranger,  "  if  the  question  is 
scarce  pertinent,  the  candour  of  my  cloth  re- 
sponds. I  am  riding  to  seek  preferment  of  the 
Queen's  own  Majesty  at  Windsor.  Is  the  con- 
fidence to  be  reciprocal  ?  " 

*'  I  am  escaping  from  my  creditors,"  said  the 
small  man.  "  Shall  I  turn  out  my  pockets,  that 
you  may  witness  to  their  emptiness  ?  " 

The  stranger  endeavoured  to  look  grave. 

'  This  suspicion,"  he  said,  "  is  unworthy." 

"Of  whom?" 

"  Of  us  both,  sir.  You  make  me  fear  I  have 
misplaced  my  confidence." 

"  In  the  richness  of  the  bone  you  proposed  to 
pick?  Very  possibly  you  have." 


CAPTAIN   MACARTNEY  303 

They  were  slowly  pacing  their  horses  all  this 
time  side  by  side.  The  road  was  utterly 
deserted,  the  prospect  of  the  dreariest.  A 
straggle  of  withered  thorns,  running  darkly  up 
the  slope  of  a  low  hill  to  the  left,  alone  broke 
the  almost  treeless  desolation. 

"  Ride  on,  sir,  ride  on,"  said  the  stranger 
in  an  offended  voice.  "  Better  my  own  fearful 
company  than  a  comrade  so  mistrustful." 

He  pulled  on  his  rein  and  fell  back.  The 
other  did  the  same. 

"  Great  God  !  "  cried  the  stranger.  "  Who's 
this?" 

Almost  without  a  sound,  it  seemed,  a  horse- 
man had  broken  from  the  shelter  of  the  thorns, 
and  drawn  up  in  the  middle  of  the  track,  barring 
their  way.  In  the  same  instant,  the  clerical 
gentleman,  who  had  fallen  again  behind,  whipped 
a  pistol  from  his  skirt-pocket  and  shot  his  com- 
panion's horse  dead.  The  bullet  entered  behind 
the  shoulder,  and  the  beast,  doubling  up  its  fore- 
legs, pitched  and  collapsed.  Its  rider,  flung  over 
its  head,  gathered  his  wits  with  agility,  and  sat 
up  to  encounter  the  vision  of  a  couple  of  rascal 
faces  looking  down  upon  him. 

"  Do  me  the  justice  to  attest,"  he  said  to  the 


304          HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

pseudo-parson,  "  that  I  never  for  a  moment  be- 
lieved in  you." 

The  other  beamed  over  him,  his  pistol  still 
smoking  in  his  hand. 

"  And  be  damned  to  your  scepticism  !  "  said 
he.  "  For  may  I  never  launch  soul  on  its  flight 
again  if  I  am  not  what  I  look,  a  broken  hedge - 
parson." 

"  Enough  of  that,  Tom,"  said  the  second 
rogue,  a  most  butchering,  determined-looking 
scoundrel.  "  His  Honour's  swollen  head  calls 
for  some  blood-letting.  Stand  away  while  I  give 
him  t'other  barrel." 

"  What  I  are  you  going  to  murder  me  ?  "  cried 
the  victim. 

"  Aye,  we  are  that,"  answered  the  ruffian.  "  A 
dead  man's  easier  stripped  than  a  live  one,  and 
makes  less  complaint  after." 

"  I'll  give  you  a  hundred  reasons  for  sparing 
me?" 

"Hold,  Jemmy!"  said  the  parson.  "The 
pick  of  a  hundred  will  do.  What  reason  of 
reasons,  Mr.  Bankrupt?" 

"  Why,  the  money  in  my  pocket,  which,  if  it's 
more  than  a  beggarly  five  guineas,  may  I  eat 
my  words." 


CAPTAIN    MACARTNEY  305 

'  That  you  shall,  and  well  peppered,  I  warrant 
you." 

"  I'll  give  you  my  bond  for  fifty,  to  be  paid 
on  personal  presentation." 

'  A  bird  in  the  hand,'  mister.     Is  that  your 
best  ?  " 

1  You'd  never  murder  a  man  for  five 
guineas?  "  cried  the  traveller,  his  voice  cracking. 

"  Five  guineas  !  "  echoed  the  parson  with  an 
oath  :  "  five  testers  ;  five  groats  ;  five  copper 
farthings — what  life  is  worth  more  ?  Give  him 
the  lead,  Jemmy." 

"  Hold  !     I'm  Captain  Macartney  !  " 

"  Captain-   -  !     Phew— w— w  !  " 

A  moment's  intense  silence  followed.  The  two 
amazed  ruffians  looked  at  one  another  with  eyes 
into  which  a  gleeful  cupidity  was  slowly  born. 
"  Captain  !  "  Their  gaze  was  transferred  to  the 
sitting  figure.  Jemmy  lowered  his  pistol.  The 
parson  was  all  one  ineffable  smile. 

"  It  fits,  by  God  !  "  said  he.  "  Why  did  it 
never  occur  to  me?  Two  hundred  pound, 
Jemmy,  my  boy  !  There's  Sir  Townley  Shore 
handy.  We  must  risk  it.  Up  with  him  before 
you.  You've  given  us  the  best  reason  the  last, 
Captain,  my  love.  And  you  prefer  the  gallows 

20 


306         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

to  a  bullet?  Well,  that's  just  a  matter  of 
taste." 

They  bound  his  arms  behind  him,  and  Jemmy 
set  him  before  him  on  the  big  Flanders  mare  that 
he  rode  ;  and  so  they  carried  their  prize,  choosing 
the  obscure  ways  in  preference,  to  the  house 
of  Sir  Townley  Shore,  the  great  county  magis- 
trate and  magnate  of  Stoke  d'Abernon,  which 
lay  a  couple  of  miles  the  other  side  of  Cobham. 

There  was  a  fine  excitement  in  the  Court  when 
it  was  known  that  the  notorious  Captain  was 
apprehended.  Sir  Townley,  who  was  just  come 
in  and  sitting  down  to  his  dinner,  ordered  in 
his  staff,  with  a  stout  ranger  or  two  for  extra 
support,  and  sent  for  the  prisoner  and  his  guard. 
But  the  moment  he  clapped  eyes  on  the  former  : 
"  Why,  Jack,"  cried  he  in  astonishment,  "  what 
the  plague  do  you  in  this  company?" 

The  two  rogues,  at  that  cry,  stiffened  aghast ; 
but  their  captive  advanced  with  a  grin. 

"  I'll  tell  you,  Townley,"  said  he.  "  I'd  not 
left  you  and  the  White  Lion  Inn  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  when,  going  on  my  way,  these  two  gentle- 
men shot  my  horse,  and,  falling  upon  me,  would 
have  murdered  me  too  had  I  not  thought  of 
the  expedient  of  calling  myself  Macartney; 


CAPTAIN    MACARTNEY  307 

whereby  I  not  only  incited  them,  hoping  for 
the  reward,  to  carry  me  into  a  place  of  safety, 
but  I  have  the  pleasure  of  presenting  you  with 
a  couple  of  very  complete  gallows-birds  for  your 
trussing." 

He  turned  on  the  paralysed  ex-cleric  with  a 
little  gasp  of  laughter. 

"  You  have  come  the  right  road  for  prefer- 
ment, parson,"  said  he.  "  You  are  going  to 
be  exalted  like  Haman." 


THE    DUG    DE    GUISE 

THE  Queen-Mother,  Catherine  de  Medici,  was 
giving  a  ball,  characteristically  insolent  in  its 
conception,  at  the  royal  palace  of  the  Louvre. 
All  the  principal  ladies  of  the  Court  were  invited 
to  attend  it,  and  each  was  to  be  accompanied 
by  her  cavaliere-servente,  wearing  her  mistress's 
livery. 

"  I  beg  you,  madam,  to  excuse  yourself,"  said 
the  Due  de  Guise  to  his  wife.  "  It  is  a  cen- 
sorious age,  and  your  condescensions  might  be 
misconstrued." 

'He  was  a  tall,  well -figured  man,  with  a  some- 
what supercilious  expression,  emphasised  by  a 
prominent  underlip.  The  cut  of  his  face,  cold 
and  aquiline,  against  his  ruff,  suggested  a  cameo 
in  high  relief.  'His  beard,  of  a  bright  brown,  was 
"  stilettoed  "  ;  a  scar  defaced  his  left  cheek  near 
the  eye,  and,  in  its  fading  or  flushing,  betrayed 
the  degree  of  his  emotions.  It  was  curiously 


309 


310         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

in  evidence  now,  though  his  voice  and  manner 
kept  their  measured  quiet. 

"  Condescensions — to  whom,  mon  cheri?  " 
asked  the  Duchess,  whisking  round  as  she  sat 
under  the  hands  of  her  tire -woman.  She  was  a 
beauty,  once  a  princess  of  Cleves,  and  as  saucy 
and  wilful  as  she  was  bewitching.  Her  husband, 
with  a  wave  of  his  hand,  dismissed  the  attendant. 

'  To  M.  Saint-Mesgrin,  madam,"  he  said. 

She  laughed.  "  Thou  hast  named  my  chosen 
cavalier,  Henri.  What  an  odd  chance  !  " 

Saint-Mesgrin  was  one  of  the  King's  mignons, 
and  his  name  and  the  lovely  Duchess's  were  too 
often  associated  of  late  for  the  Guise's  toler- 
ance. 

"  Is  it  not?"  he  said.  "I  cannot  imagine 
what  suggested  it." 

He  took  a  sweetmeat  from  a  little  gold  box, 
in  shape  like  a  shell,  that  he  carried,  and  put  it 
between  his  lips. 

"  I  could  not  believe,"  said  the  lady,  pouting 
and  in  an  aggrieved  voice,  *'  that  the  Due  de 
Guise  would  condescend  to  jealousy." 

"  Nor  does  he,  madam,"  answered  the  Duke. 
"  It  is  his  honour  for  which  he  is  concerned." 

She   flounced  a   shoulder   on   him. 


THE    DUG    DE    GUISE  311 

"  O,  very  well,  monsieur  I  You  know  best 
what  is  worth  your  consideration.  But,  if  I  were 
a  man,  I  should  not,  I  think,  consign  my 
honour  to  the  keeping  of  a  despised  wife.  Will 
you  be  pleased  to  call  back  my  maid?" 

'*  You  persist,  then,  in  going?  " 

"Will  you  call  Celestine?" 

'  Your  mere  presence  there,  and  in  such  com- 
pany, will  be  construed,  you  must  understand, 
into  a  justification  for  all  the  calumnies  and 
slanders  which  have  pursued  your  name  of  late." 

'  What  matter,  if  you  do  not  so  construe  it  ? 
You  are  not  jealous,  grace  a  Dieii.  And  as  to 
that  great  matter  of  your  honour,  I  will  put  it 
for  safe  custody  into  the  hands  of  Saint-Mesgrin, 
and  you  can  ask  him  for  an  account  of  it  when 
you  please." 

"To  be  sure  I  shall,  and  very  soon  perhaps. 
You  will  go  to  the  ball,  then,  madam?" 

"  You  know  I  must  not  disappoint  the  Queen - 
Mother,"  she  said  hotly ;  but  a  certain  trepida- 
tion was  beginning  to  flutter  her  heart. 

"  You  are  resolved?  " 

"Will  you  stop  me?" 

"  By  no  means." 

She   laughed   defiantly. 


312          HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  O,  most  certainly  I  shall  go  then  !  " 

The  Duke  rose,  and  bowed  very  gravely. 

'  I  wish  you  a  good  night,  madam,"  he  said. 
14  Go,  and  enjoy  yourself  while  you  may." 

She  bit  her  lip  as  he  left  the  room.  For  a 
moment  she  was  half  resolved  to  yield  her  pride 
to  the  panic  fear  that  had  seized  her ;  but  the 
perverse  demon  prevailed,  and  she  called  back 
her  woman. 

She  went  to  the  questionable  ball,  and  the 
night  passed  for  her  in  a  sort  of  conscious 
delirium  peopled  with  shapes  of  gaudy  terror. 
The  King,  the  Queen-Mother,  even  Saint- 
Mesgrin  himself,  seemed  forms  of  demoniac 
malice,  luring  her  on  to  her  damnation.  She 
longed,  and  yet  feared,  to  fly  the  unreal  pande- 
monium. Her  own  peaceful  bed  figured  to  her 
as  something  pathetic  beyond  words — a  haven 
of  dear  refuge  which  she  had  forfeited  for  ever. 

At  length,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the 
ball  broke  up,  and  she  hurried  home  with  what 
feverish  haste  the  crowd  would  permit  her.  At 
bed,  in  the  Hotel  de  Guise,  she  cowered  beneath 
the  coverlets,  and,  the  attendants  dismissed,  lay 
shivering  like  a  mouse  in  a  trap.  She  hardly 
dared  to  breathe,  for  fear  of  evoking  some 


THE    DUG    DE    GUISE  313 

menacing  echo.  She  could  have  thought  that 
something  horrible,  like  a  monstrous  cat, 
crouched  outside  her  door. 

All  of  a  sudden  her  heart  seemed  to  stop. 
Quick,  soft  steps  were  coming  down  the  corridor, 
and  the  next  moment  her  door  opened,  and  the 
Duke,  followed  by  a  servitor  bearing  a  bowl  of 
broth  on  a  salver,  entered  the  room. 

She  uttered  a  little  stifled  cry.  There  was 
something  even  horrible  and  suggestive  in  the 
choice  of  the  attendant,  who  was  a  small,  vacant- 
faced  deaf-mute  much  employed  by  her 
husband  on  secret  services.  She  sat  up  in  her 
dishevelled  beauty,  white  and  panting. 

"  O,  Henri,  tnon  anti"  she  whispered,  "  you 
have  frightened  me  so  !  " 

He  locked  the  door  behind  him  and  came 
forward,  his  eyes  brilliant,  his  lips  smiling. 

"  That  is  a  sad  result  of  my  consideration," 
he  said.  "  I  foresaw  very  well  that  your  heated 
blood  would  prevent  you  from  sleeping,  and  that 
a  counter  caloric  would  be  necessary  for  your 
rest.  Thank  my  foresight,  madam,  and  drink 
down  this  broth." 

"  No,  Henri— no,  no  !  " 

"  Peste,!    this  is  a  peevish  return,   nta  mie. 


314         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

Are  you  such  a  child  to  cry  at  your  draught, 
and  when  it  comes  in  so  pleasant  a  disguise? 
Why,  it  needs  no  physician  to  see  the  excited 
wakefulness  in  your  eyes.  Down  with  it,  and 
you  will  sleep — take  my  word  for  it." 

'*  Henri,  before  God  I  have  done  no  harm !  " 

'  What  resistance — out  of  all  proportion  with 
the  act  !  Who  said  you  had  done  harm — or, 
if  he  thought  it,  would  dream  of  retaliating  with 
such  kindness.  Come,  shut  your  eyes  and  gulp." 

"  I  will  not  indeed." 

Desperate  to  run,  she  put  a  foot  over  the 
bedside.  He  held  her  back  with  a  force  gentle 
but  irresistible. 

"  Henri  1  "  she  cried  in  agony,  "  I  was 
wretched  all  the  evening — O,  believe  me  !  " 

"  Ah  !  I  thought  you  did  a  mistaken  thing  in 
going.  What  a  pity  you  rejected  my  advice  !  " 

She  shrank  from  him,  her  throat  gulping,  her 
eyes  clouded  with  horror. 

"  Your  voice  is  cold,"  she  whispered—"  cold, 
cold  as  your  eyes,  as  your  heart.  O,  Death  ! 
Will  you  have  no  mercy  ?  Henri !  " 

"  Why,  you  are  overwrought,  lady.  This  is 
foolish.  Come,  the  broth  is  cooling." 

"  Must  I  drink  it?  " 


THE    DUC    DE    GUISE  315 

'  To  please  me." 

"  My  confessor  first — only  for  five  minutes." 

'  What !  for  a  dose  of  medicine  ?  You  speak 
as  though  it  were  poison — the  morceau  Italianize! 
And  even  were  it,  what  could  lie  to  confess  in 
so  clear  a  conscience  ?  " 

'  You  never  loved  me.     Give  me  the  bowl." 

"  I  will  hold  it  to  your  lips." 

"  No,   no,   you   cannot,   you   will  not." 

'  You  make  me  obstinate,  madam.  I  am  not 
wont  to  be  disobeyed." 

"  O,  horror  !  " 

"  I  never  loved  you,  you  say.  Do  you  love 
me?" 

"  Before  God,  yes  !  " 

"  A  little  thing  to  refuse  your  love.  Come 
now,  it  must  be  done  !  " 

A  shudder  convulsed  her  whole  frame  ;  and 
then  suddenly  she  stiffened,  white  as  ashes. 

"  I  will  drink  it,"  she  said,  "  and  then  perhaps 
you  will  believe  in  me." 

With  a  hand  as  steady  as  a  rock  he  held  the 
bowl  to  her  lips.  Her  teeth  chattered  on  its 
rim  a  moment,  and  then  she  drank,  and  stopped. 

"  To  the  dregs,"  he  said  quietly. 

She  took  the  cup  from  his  hand,  and,  looking 


316         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

him  straight  in  the  eyes,  drained  it,  threw  it  from 
her,  and  closing  her  lids,  lay  back. 

One  moment  he  stood  gazing  down,  then, 
beckoning  to  his  attendant,  very  softly  left  the 
room,  locking  the  door  behind  him. 

She  never  moved,  she  never  opened  her  eyes. 
Still,  as  though  death  had  already  seized  her, 
she  lay  there,  a  creeping  rigor  seeming  to  para- 
lyse her  limbs.  Only  her  brain  was  busy, 
deliriously,  unceasingly,  gnawing  like  a  rat  in 
an  empty  house.  What  conscious  reason  it 
possessed  was  absorbed  exclusively  in  the  coming 
horror  of  her  passing.  She  was  stunned  beyond 
any  thought  of  eternity,  or  of  the  part  her  sinful 
soul  must  play  in  it.  Uove — the  love  of  earth, 
of  man,  of  power — was  a  thing  shrunk  to  in- 
significance, a  dreary,  discredited  enchantment. 
The  thought  of  the  poison  that  possessed  her 
absorbed  her  whole  being.  She  had  nothing 
left  in  common  with  that  sweet,  fantastic  conceit, 
a  desirable  woman.  She  was  gold  turned  grey 
and  acrid  from  contact  with  mercury — a  thing 
preposterous  and  contaminated.  How  was  the 
bane  about  to  act,  to  assert  its  hideous  mastery? 
Already  strange  stings  and  tremors  were  apparent 
in  her  veins.  Was  she  to  be  drugged  into  a 


THE    DUG    DE    GUISE  317 

merciful  oblivion,  or  wrenched  and  distorted 
out  of  all  semblance  to  humanity?  Fearful 
memories  of  tales  she  had  heard  whispered 
thronged  into  her  mind.  He  would  not  have 
spared  her  the  worst ;  why  should  he,  a 
vengeance  revealed  so  soulless,  so  calculatingly 
diabolic  ? 

She  felt  the  poison  creeping  up  her  veins. 
When  it  reached  her  heart,  it  would  seize  on 
there,  she  knew,  and  tear  her  to  death  with 
its  red-hot  fangs.  A  mortal  terror  throttled  her  ; 
she  was  dying,  helpless,  abandoned,  alone  to 
all  eternity.  With  a  supreme  effort  she  struggled 
momentarily  out  of  the  shadows,  and  uttered  a 
choking  scream. 

The  key  turned  in  the  lock  and  her  husband 
entered. 

'  What  is  it,  ma  mie?  "  he  said,  and  hurried 
to  her  side. 

She  turned  a  grey  and  ghastly  face  to  him. 
1  The  poison— O,  the  poison  !  " 

"What  poison?" 

"  The  broth  !  " 

"  Foolish  I  It  was  just  broth,  no  more.  I 
swear  it  on  my  honour." 

"Henri!"  Her  hands  began  to  tremble.  He 
caught  them  in  his  own. 


318         HISTORICAL    VIGNETTES 

"  I  had  hoped  it  would  cure  thy  fever,"  he 
said. 

"It  is  cured,"  she  answered,  and  burst  into 
overwhelming  tears. 

He  took  her  into  his  arms.  "Hush!"  he 
said.  *  We  have  passed  some  unhappy  hours, 
mignonne,  each  for  the  other's  sake.  Now  shall 
we  call  .quits?  " 


NOTE 

THESE  sketches,  with  a  single  exception, 
appeared  originally,  under  the  covering  title 
"  'Historical  Vignettes,"  in  Truth,  to  whose 
Editor  the  author's  thanks,  for  most  kind 
.permission  to  reprint,  are  given. 

The  fancy  entitled  "  Fouquier-Tinville  "  was 
first  published  in  the  English  Review,  and  is 
here  included  with  due  acknowledgments  to  the 
Editor. 


319 


Ube  Orcsbam  press, 

CNWIN  BROTHERS,  LIMITED, 
WOKIXG  AND  LONDON. 


University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 

Phone  Hbnswsis 
310/826-9188 


315 


